Swedish academy announces 2019 Nobel Prize winners in physics

October 10, 2019

On Tuesday, the announced the winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics in Stockholm, Sweden. The prize was shared between and the duo of  and. They are to share a monetary award of 9 million (approximately 738 thousand or USD910 thousand) from the.

Canadian-US scientist James Peebles won his half of the prize for his work in predicting and creating a theoretical framework from which other scientists have been able to calculate the age and structure of the, including the calculation that the universe is 95% dark matter and. He is a professor at Princeton University.

Queloz and Mayor, both from Switzerland, won their prize for discovering the first known exoplanet in 1995. The planet they found was, a Jupiter-like some 50 light years away from Earth. Since their discovery, according to the academy, over four thousand other exoplanets have been discovered. Both are professors at the ; Queloz is also a professor at the University of Cambridge.

"Both these prizes [...] tell us something essential, something existential about our place in the Universe", said selection committee member Ulf Danielsson. "The first one, tracing the history back to an unknown origin, is so fascinating. The other one tries to answer these questions about: 'are we alone &mdash; is there life anywhere else in the Universe?'&thinsp;"