French astrophysicist Andre Brahic, one of the discoverers of Neptune’s rings, died in Paris at the age of 73 on Sunday.

“He was a brilliant character… extraordinarily warm, profound and authentic ,a great scholar and also a storyteller, a writer,” said his publisher Odile Jacob.

French President Francois Hollande in a statement hailed a great mind “who knew how to make simple the mysteries of the sky”, as AFP reports.

He described him as a great teacher “whose books and comments allowed us to voyage through space”.

In 1984 he launched a programme which led to the discovery, along with US astronomer William Hubbard, of the rings around the gaseous planet Neptune.

He was an astrophysicist at the Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies (CEA) and a professor at the University of Paris, while in 1990 an asteroid, number 3488, was named Brahic in his honour.

He was born in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942 and was initiated into astrophysics after the war by Evry Schatzman, considered the father of the discipline in France.