We learned this morning that James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz are sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics!
The first half of the prize was awarded to James Peebles “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology”.
Peebles is very well known in our community for his work on the CMB, large-scale structure, dark matter, and galaxy formation, which has been foundational to much of modern cosmology. And most centrally to DESI, he was one of the people who dreamed up and predicted the baryon acoustic oscillations, decades before their discovery!
The other half of the prize is shared between Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting an solar-type star”.
Mayor and Queloz are awarded for their first discovery of a planet orbiting a star outside our solar system. Another huge theme in modern astrophysics.
Congratulations to all three!