Giovanni Sostero

Who was Giovanni Sostero?

Giovanni Sostero was an Italian amateur astronomer. He was one of the leading members of the Associazione Friulana di Astronomia e Meteorologia. He was an honorary member of the Astronomical Observatory of Visnjan, too.

Sostero was very active as a public out-reacher and has published some scientific works in professional astronomical journals. He had over 1880 NASA ADS citations for his work. His main research fields were the minor bodies of the Solar System and variable stars. In particular, he discovered several supernovae: 2009jp, 2008ae, 2008F, 2007cl, 2006br, 2006bm, 2006H, 2006B, 2005ly, 2005kz, 2005kc. In 2000 he co-discovered a nova in the galaxy M31.

The asteroid 9878 Sostero was named after him.

He died on December 6th, 2012 due to the complications of a heart attack. He was 48 years old.