In the wake of the departed

Nikolay Skobelev 18.12.1935 - 30.01.2026

The Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions regrets to announce that on 30 January, after a long illness, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Scientific Secretary of the Programme Advisory Committee for Nuclear Physics, a senior researcher at FLNR, an outstanding scientist, a teacher and an organizer of science Nikolay Konstantinovich Skobelev passed away.

Nikolay Konstantinovich belonged to the generation of researchers that had laid the foundations of the advanced experimental nuclear physics. His entire professional life was inextricably united to JINR, where he came to work in 1959 after having graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Even at the beginning of his scientific journey, he proved himself to be a deeply thinking experimenter, able to unite a subtle physical instinct with engineering ingenuity and exceptional performance.

The main scientific papers of Nikolay Konstantinovich were dedicated to the investigation of the properties of spontaneous fission of heavy and superheavy nuclei, of isotopes of americium, california, fermium and transuranium elements. The results obtained by him played an important role in understanding the stabilizing role of the number of neutrons N=152 and in the development of ideas about the structure of nuclear fission barriers near the fermium.

A significant stage of his scientific activity concerns the search for superheavy elements in nature. The proportional counters developed with his active engagement allowed studying extremely rare spontaneous fission events in samples of terrestrial and extraterrestrial origin. These investigations resulted in the establishment of a lower limit for the content of superheavy elements in the matter of the solar system and were the basis of the Ph.D. thesis defended by him in 1970.

The discovery of delayed nuclear fission, co-authored by him is of particular significance in his scientific activity. This fundamental phenomenon, officially registered in 1975, was an important contribution to the development of nuclear physics.

With his engagement, the MSP144 magnetic analyzer was developed on the U300 cyclotron and experiments were carried out to study the charge distributions of nuclei produced in fusion reactions. The results obtained were the basis for subsequent investigations on the synthesis of new chemical elements.

In recent years, he has been engaged in research on beams of radioactive nuclei, having obtained new data on the structure and interaction of exotic nuclei. His papers have been awarded JINR prizes and are internationally recognized.

Nikolay Konstantinovich was the author and co-author of more than 150 scientific publications and two inventions, a winner of eight JINR prizes in scientific competitions. His contribution to the training of scientific personnel is invaluable: he brought up many students that today successfully work in leading scientific centres in Russia and in the world. For them, he will forever be an example of scientific honesty, exactingness for himself and his students, of respectful and considerable attitude towards people.

Along with scientific work, he was successfully engaged in scientific and organizational activities for many years, acting as Scientific Secretary of the JINR Programme Advisory Committee for Nuclear Physics. He was distinguished by integrity, a deep understanding of scientific priorities and the ability to find balanced solutions in difficult situations. He was awarded the Veteran of Nuclear Power and Industry badge.

With the departure of Nikolay Konstantinovich Skobelev, Russian and world nuclear physics suffered an irreparable loss. The bright memory of him as an outstanding scientist, a wise mentor and a man of high inner culture will forever live in the hearts of colleagues, students, friends and everyone who happened to work and communicate with him.

FLNR staff