(Inside Science) — The 2019 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists “for contribution to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos.”
This year’s prize was awarded to James Peebles of Princeton University “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology, and Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva and Didier Queloz, of the University of Geneva and the University of Cambridge, “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.”
“Cosmic background radiation was discovered in 1965 and turned out to be a gold mine for our understanding of how the universe developed from its early childhood to its present day,” said Mats Larsson, a member of the Nobel Prize Committee. “Were it not for the theoretical discoveries of James Peebles, the wonderful high precision measurement of these radiations over the last 20 years would have told us almost nothing.”
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