Peebles, Mayor and Queloz Share 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics

(Bloomberg) -- Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of Switzerland and James Peebles of Canada were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics for ”contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and earth’s place in the cosmos.”

The trio has “transformed our ideas about the cosmos,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement on Tuesday. This year’s prize “rewards new understanding of the universe’s structure and history, and the first discovery of a planet orbiting a solar-type star outside our solar system.”

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The total amount for each of the 2019 prizes is 9 million kronor ($910,000).

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