Nobel physics prize awarded to Peebles, Mayor and Queloz for cosmic discoveries

Record ID: 1435760

  • Title: Nobel physics prize awarded to Peebles, Mayor and Queloz for cosmic discoveries
  • Date: 8th October 2019
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2019 12:48
  • Keywords: Nobel Physics Nobel prize in physics
  • Location: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
  • City: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
  • Country: Sweden
  • Topics: Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA005B08LAH3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Canadian-American cosmologist James Peebles and Swiss scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday (October 8) for revealing the wonder of the evolution of the universe and discovering planets orbiting distant suns.
    Peebles, of Princeton University in the United States, was awarded half of the 9-million-Swedish-crown (910,000 U.S. dollar) prize while Mayor and Queloz, from Switzerland's University of Geneva and Britain's Cambridge University, shared the rest.
    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the scientists' research had "transformed our ideas about the cosmos".
    Physics is the second Nobel to be awarded this week. William Kaelin, Gregg Semenza and Peter Ratcliffe shared the medicine prize on Monday (October 7) for discoveries about how cells respond to oxygen levels.
    Among the Nobels, physics has often taken centre stage with winners featuring some of the greatest names in science like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Niels Bohr, as well as ground-breaking inventors such as radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
    Using theoretical tools and calculations, Peebles was able to interpret trace radiation from the infancy of the universe and so discover new physical processes, the academy said. It said that Mayor and Queloz announced the first discovery of a planet outside our own solar system, a so-called "exoplanet", starting a revolution in astronomy. Over 4,000 exoplanets have since been found in the Milky Way.
    (Production: Ilze Filks, Chiara Rodriquez)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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