- Title: Nobel Prize win is emotionally 'intense' - Swiss astronomer Queloz
- Date: 8th October 2019
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 8, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "Okay so, well I was in a scientific meeting as I said and I got the news by a phone call by the press office of Cambridge (university). My first reaction is I wanted to make sure it wasn't a joke. So I said: 'is it a joke?' And then I could not think at all, I had a blackout for a couple of minutes because emotionally it was extremely, extremely intense. We all know, I mean as a scientist, a Nobel Prize is a pinnacle of the science and frankly I was not expecting that this morning at all." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "It took a long time to establish the meaning of the detection we had, as often when you do something so unique so exceptional that no one has predicted. And that's the whole story of Exoplanets, it comes in a way - it was expected but the way we found the planet and the kind of planet we found was entirely unexpected and it makes (it) even more difficult to convince the whole world that we had a detection here." QUELOZ SPEAKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "And here we are, we have (discovered) thousands of planets. And I can tell you out of the thousands of planets, there is very few that look like any planet in the solar system, which makes the mystery deeper, even deeper, and even more interesting, that's why we keep working on that because we have still a lot of questions to answer in this field." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "So, so when people ask me 'when you were looking for planets, did you know there were planets?' Of course I was convinced there would be planets. So if we start finding life - looking for life - we are convinced that there must be life on the planets otherwise we would not search for it." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "Well you know, that's, I think the Royal Society has already acknowledged, I mean, all the Brexit process, I mean, is not good for science. And I think that's true, but science will go on anyway no matter whatever decision this country is going to take." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOINT WINNER OF 2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS, SWISS ASTRONOMER, DIDER QUELOZ, SAYING: "The global warming, it's old stuff for science. I mean, to me, I'm still amazed that people are challenging this in terms of reality. I think there is no doubt. This is ongoing and we are making it. There is so many elements to demonstrate that, there is no way to dispute that. It's a fully established scientific fact, and I think it's irresponsible to claim that this is not right." WHITE FLASH "I went (in)to science because I'm desperately curious, and I believe I could have done other kinds of science but I was kind of gifted in Mathematics and Physics. I love - I want to understand everything, and this is really my big, big push. It's trying to understand and being curious." QUELOZ LIFTING WINE BOTTLE IN CELEBRATION QUELOZ HOLDING WINE AND SMILING QUELOZ SMILING
- Embargoed: 22nd October 2019 15:54
- Keywords: Brexit exoplanets science astrophysics 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics astronomy climate change Cambridge University extraterrestrial life
- Location: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN / LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- City: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN / LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA003B08MO93
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Swiss scientist Didier Queloz on Tuesday (October 8) said the minutes after finding out he had won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics were "extremely intense."
An astrophysicist at Britain's Cambridge University, Queloz was awarded the 2019 prize jointly with fellow Swiss scientist Michel Mayor for discovering planets orbiting distant suns.
The two split the price with Canadian-American cosmologist James Peebles, of Princeton University in the United States, for his work on revealing the wonder of evolution.
Queloz, a one-time doctoral student of Mayor, announced the first discovery of a planet outside our own solar system, a so-called "exoplanet", in 1995.
Since their discovery, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been found in the Milky Way, many of them nothing like our own world.
Indeed, the first planet they found, 51 Pegasi b, orbits a sun 50 light years away that heats its surface to more than 1,000 degrees centigrade, the award-giving academy said.
The difference between exoplanets and those in our own solar system "makes the mystery deeper... and even more interesting," Queloz said at a news conference in London following the Nobel announcement. "We still have a lot of questions to answer."
For many in the field, the focus of research has now shifted from finding more planets to finding out more about them, Queloz said.
"We are convinced there must be life on the planets, otherwise we would not search for it."
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