Professor TANAKA Yasuo designated as a Person of Cultural Merit

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has announced that Professor TANAKA Yasuo , Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, who graduated from the Department of Physics, School of Science of Osaka University, has been designated as a Person of Cultural Merit.

Graduating from the School of Science of Osaka University in 1953, Professor Tanaka served as assistant in the Center for Nuclear Study, University of Tokyo, and as assistant professor in the School of Science at Nagoya University. This was followed by serving in the position of professor in the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science, University of Tokyo in 1974.

After leaving the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science in 1994, he served as director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Bonn Office, until 2008.

He displayed outstanding leadership in hot gas research by X-ray observatory, development of iron line spectroscopic observation, verification of relativistic effect in terms of black holes as well as in international cooperation, raising the standard of Japanese space science to the world's top.

Sincere congratulations to you, Professor Tanaka, on this honor!

For additional information [in Japanese], please go here .