 Giacconi was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002 "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources".The other shares of the Prize in that year were awarded to Masatoshi Koshiba and Raymond Davis, Jr. for neutrino astronomy.Giacconi held the positions of professor of physics and astronomy (1982–1997) and research professor (from 1998 to his death in 2018) at Johns Hopkins University, and was a university professor.