10/23/2019 Physics - <i>Nobel Prize</i>—Tackling Cosmic Questions

Nobel Prize—Tackling Cosmic

Questions
October 10, 2019 • Physics 12, 111

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research that helped explain the
evolution of the Universe and reveal the prevalence of worlds like our own.

Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

2019 Nobel laureate Jim Peebles helped to establish the current standard model of cosmology,
which describes the evolution of the Universe from the big bang (le ) to the growth of galaxies
(right).

Where do we come from? Are we alone? The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics honors
researchers who have helped us find some answers to these cosmic questions. James
Peebles of Princeton University received half of the prize for describing details of the
evolution of our Universe from its hot dense past to its galaxy-filled present. Michel
Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva received the other half of the
prize for their discovery of a planet orbiting a star like our Sun.
This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our Privacy Policy.

I Agree ()

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/111 1/5
10/23/2019 Physics - <i>Nobel Prize</i>—Tackling Cosmic Questions

When Peebles began working on cosmology in the early 1960s, the field was fairly
abstract, dominated by discussions over the mathematical consistency of an infinitely
dense point at the very beginning of the Universe. In 1965 Peebles and his colleagues
argued that—regardless of the initial state of the cosmos—matter and radiation should
have been in thermal equilibrium in the early Universe, when the temperature was
above 1010 K [1]. Running the cosmic clock forward, they calculated that the
temperature of that radiation would cool to a present value of around 10 K, depending
on the overall density of the Universe.

As luck would have it, a detection of background radiation in the microwave region of
the spectrum was made in that same year by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell
Labs in New Jersey [2]. Penzias and Wilson approached Peebles and his Princeton
colleagues to make sense of their signal, which corresponded to a radiation
temperature of about 3.5 K. This first measurement of the cosmic microwave
background (CMB) was a breakthrough moment for physical cosmology, the field that
uses the laws of physics and astronomical observations to construct models of the
Universe’s evolution. “One could almost say that Peebles invented modern physical
cosmology,” says astrobiologist Charles Lineweaver from the Australian National
University in Canberra.

Peebles used the early observations of the CMB to make new predictions for “cooking
up” nuclei in the hot dense soup generated by the big bang. Earlier studies had already
considered this so-called big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), but they hadn’t fully
accounted for the e ect of background radiation (see 5 May 2005 Focus story). The
presence of this radiation in the early Universe limited the formation of heavy
elements, as high-energy photons can dissociate nuclei into protons and neutrons.
Peebles realized that knowledge of the CMB temperature allowed him to predict when
this photodissociation would end, so that protons and neutrons could begin to fuse
together. Based on this timing of nuclear fusion, he determined that the amount of
helium created in the big bang should account for between 27% and 30% of all nuclear
matter [3]. Impressively, this estimate is not far from the current estimate of the
primordial helium abundance of 25%. BBN expert Keith Olive from the University of
Minnesota says Peebles’ work was “fundamental” in reviving e orts to explain the
origin of light elements.
This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our Privacy Policy.

I Agree ()

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/111 2/5
10/23/2019 Physics - <i>Nobel Prize</i>—Tackling Cosmic Questions

Peebles had an impact in many other subfields of cosmology. He was one of the
theorists who predicted temperature fluctuations in the CMB, which were eventually
observed by all-sky surveys such as those of the Planck and WMAP satellites. He had a
hand in solidifying the evidence for dark matter by showing that spiral galaxies like our
Milky Way could not have their flattened shape without the extra gravitational pull
from dark matter [4]. He also was an early proponent for adding so-called dark energy
to cosmological models to help explain the observed large-scale structure of the
Universe.

“Just about every advance in our understanding of cosmology has been boosted by
the work of Jim Peebles,” says Princeton cosmologist Jeremiah Ostriker. “Big bang
nucleosynthesis, the growth of cosmic structure, the existence of dark matter, and so
many other advances in our understanding were shepherded by Jim Peebles’ work
and wisdom.” Thanks to his e orts, cosmologists can explain the evolution of the
Universe with just a handful of numbers, says experimental astrophysicist Lyman
Page, also from Princeton.

European Southern Observatory

Artist's rendering of a hot Jupiter around a Sun-like star.

The other half of this year’s physics prize focuses on the planetary scale. The ground-
breaking discovery by Mayor and Queloz of a planet orbiting a Sun-like star came two
decades before the Kepler and TESS satellites made planet detection routine. In the
early 1990s, astronomers were still struggling to find hints of planets beyond our solar
This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our Privacy Policy.

I Agree ()

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/111 3/5
10/23/2019 Physics - <i>Nobel Prize</i>—Tackling Cosmic Questions

system. There were some detections of planets orbiting neutron stars called pulsars,
but those environments were considered so unique that they gave little insight into
the development of Earth-like planets.

The search strategy of Mayor and Queloz was based on the radial velocity technique,
which involves monitoring the spectral lines in a star’s emission. If a planet is orbiting
the star, those lines will shi slightly up and down in frequency as the star is tugged
back and forth by the planet’s gravity. Previous radial velocity surveys had come up
empty, but they had been limited to the brightest stars in the sky. Mayor, Queloz, and
their colleagues designed a more sensitive spectrograph, called ELODIE, that allowed
them to target a larger number of stars. In 1995, they reported a planet-induced
wobble in 51 Pegasi, a Sun-like star located 50 light-years away [5].

The detected planet, named 51 Peg b, was not something that most astronomers
would have predicted. The large amplitude of the radial velocity signal implied that
the planet was massive, roughly half the size of Jupiter. But the period of the signal
was just 4 days, so the planet’s distance to its star was only 5% of the Earth-Sun
separation. Calculations suggested that the planet’s surface temperature would be
1300 K.

“Mayor and Queloz helped launch the exoplanet detection industry,” Lineweaver says.
He explains that their discovery had an initially negative e ect on searches for worlds
like our own, as 51 Peg b—and other “hot Jupiters” that were subsequently discovered
—gave the impression that Earth-like planets might be very rare. But once
astrophysicists accounted for the high likelihood of detecting hot Jupiters, they
realized that “our type of planetary system could be the most common kind,”
Lineweaver says.

And if Earth-like worlds are ubiquitous, we might not be the only ones watching the
cosmic evolution unfold.

– Michael Schirber

Michael Schirber is a Corresponding Editor for Physics based in Lyon, France.

References
This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our Privacy Policy.

1. R. H. Dicke, P. J. E. Peebles, P. G. Roll, and D. T. Wilkinson, “Cosmic black-body

I Agree ()
radiation,” Astrophys. J. 142, 414 (1965).

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/111 4/5
10/23/2019 Physics - <i>Nobel Prize</i>—Tackling Cosmic Questions

2. A. A. Penzias and R. W. Wilson, “A measurement of excess antenna temperature

at 4080 Mc/s,” Astrophys. J. 142, 419 (1965).
3. P. J. E. Peebles, “Primeval helium abundance and the primeval fireball,” Phys.
Rev. Lett. 16, 410 (1966).
4. J. P. Ostriker and P. J. E. Peebles, “A numerical study of the stability of flattened
galaxies: or, can cold galaxies survive?,” Astrophys. J. 186, 467 (1973).
5. M. Mayor and D. Queloz, “A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star,” Nature
378, 355 (1995).

More Information
Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

Print

This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our Privacy Policy.

I Agree ()

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/111 5/5