“He was a brilliant character… extraordinarily warm, profound and authentic, a great scholar and also a storyteller, a writer,” Odile Jacob, who was close to Brahic said.
The Frenchman was one of the team who first spotted the rings in 1984, naming them Equality, Fraternity and Liberty after the motto of the French Republic.
French President Francois Hollande in a statement hailed a great mind “who knew how to make simple the mysteries of the sky”.
He described him as a great teacher “whose books and comments allowed us to voyage through space”.
Born into a modest family in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942, Brahic was initiated into astrophysics after the war by Evry Schatzman, considered the father of the discipline in France.
Brahic, was seen as a key figure in increasing public awareness of research into space.
It was his interest in Saturn and its rings which led him to launch his Neptune research.
In 1990 an asteroid, number 3488, was named Brahic in his honour.
In his work with the Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies in Paris and as a professor at the University of Paris, he helped carry out research into the solar system through Nasa and European unmanned missions.
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