Julian Osborne, British astrophysicist. Osborne is a senior research fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, UK. His main research involves looking at cosmic rays (such as gamma rays and X-rays) in space. He investigates radioactive bursts using the Swift satellite and the XXM-Newton (X-ray Multi- Mirror) satellite. Swift uses Gamma ray, X-ray and UV/optical telescopes to detect what are apparently random flashes of radiation coming from random places billions of light years away from Earth. XXM-Newton has three X-ray telescopes which allow study of high-energy phenomena such as supernovae and black holes. Osborne analyses the data from these satellites to try and find out why the radiation occurs.