Physical Sciences Division of Russian Academy of Sciences in the 21st century: space and astrophysics research

This paper is based on the eponymous talk delivered by Academician L M Zelenyi at the Scientific Session of the General Assembly of the Physical Sciences Division, Russian Academy of Sciences, “300th Anniversary of the Academy: Successes and Achievements of Physical Sciences in the 21st Century,” in May 2024. The information presented in the talk has been supplemented and expanded, but it is still highly challenging to describe everything that has been done over the past quarter of a century in such intricate fields as astronomy and space research and to list all the achievements and all our scientists that contributed to these achievements within a single paper. However, we hope that the selection presented here will allow the reader to formulate a general idea of the significance of many outstanding academic studies carried out in Russia during difficult times for science and to appreciate the scale of the achievements. By academic, we mean studies conducted at the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading institutions for higher education and universities, and other institutions under the scientific and methodological guidance of the Russian Academy of Sciences.