Vu 1

Vu Dang Khoi-22055633
Quoc Hung, NQ
ENVS 120 1
10 May. 2023

Report

Nobel 2019
 

I.  Overview
1. The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are presented annually from a fund established by the Swedish inventor
and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are usually recognized as the world's most
distinguished rewards for intellectual achievement. 

Nobel Prizes are given in the fields of

physics, chemistry, physiology or
medicine, literature, and peace (Nobel
defined the Peace Prize as "to the person
who has done the most or best to advance
fellowship among nations, the abolition
or reduction of standing armies, and the
establishment and promotion of peace
congresses"). Sveriges Riksbank
(Sweden's central bank) established the
Alfred Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
in 1968, which is also administered by
the Nobel Foundation. The Nobel Prizes
are typically recognized as the most
prestigious honours available in their
respective professions.

 
 Vu 2

The award ceremonies are held on an annual basis. Each recipient (dubbed a "laureate") is
presented with a green gold medal plated with 24 carat gold, a diploma, and a monetary award.
The monetary reward for the Nobel Prize in 2021 will be 10,000,000 SEK. A prize cannot be
shared by more than three people, however the Nobel Peace Prize can be given to organizations
having more than three people. Although Nobel Prizes are not given posthumously, if a person is
nominated for one and dies before receiving it, the prize is still given.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences have been
given 609 times to 975 individuals and 25 organizations. Five people and two organizations have
received multiple awards.

The Nobel Foundation was established to carry out the terms of Nobel's will and manage his
finances after his passing. He specified in his will that the rewards would be given out by four
distinct institutions, three Swedish and one Norwegian. The Swedish Academy bestows the prize
for literature, the Karolinska Institute bestows the prize for physiology or medicine, and the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences bestows the prizes for physics, chemistry, and economics
all from Stockholm. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which has its headquarters in Oslo,
bestows the peace prize. The Nobel Foundation functions as the joint administrative organization
of the prize-awarding institutions and is the legal owner and functional administrator of the
monies, but it is not involved in the consideration or decision-making for awards, which are
made solely by the four institutions.

II. Alfred Nobel

1. Father of the prize

Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the father of this

honorable prize, was a Swedish chemist,
engineer, inventor, businessman, and
philanthropist. He is known for having
bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel
Prize, though he also made several important
contributions to science, holding 355 patents
in his lifetime. Nobel's most famous invention
was dynamite, a safer and easier means of
harnessing the explosive power of
nitroglycerin. It was patented in 1867.

 
 Vu 3

Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and
languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at age 24. He embarked on
many business ventures with his family, most notably owning Bofors, an iron and steel producer
that he developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments.

Nobel was later inspired to donate his fortune to the Nobel Prize Institution, which would
annually recognize those who "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". The synthetic
element Nobelium was named after him, and his name and legacy also survive in companies
such as Dynamite Nobel and Akzo Nobel, which descend from mergers with companies he
founded.

Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his
will, would be responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry.

2. Personal life

Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833, in

Stockholm, United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway. He was the
third son of inventor and engineer Immanuel Nobel (1801-1872)
and Karolina Andriette Nobel (née Ahlsell, 1805-1889). In 1827,
the couple married and had eight children. Only Alfred and his
three brothers survived childhood since the family was destitute.
Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus
Rudbeck (1630-1702) through his father, and the kid was
interested in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the
fundamentals from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel
inherited his father's passion in technology, who was a graduate
of Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology.

Following several commercial failures, Nobel's father relocated to

Saint Petersburg, Russia, and became a successful machine tool and explosives maker there. He
developed the veneer lathe (which enabled the manufacture of modern plywood) and began work
on the torpedo. The family moved to the city with him in 1842. Nobel's parents could now afford
 Vu 4

to take him to private tutors, and he excelled in his studies, notably science and languages,
acquiring proficiency in English, French, German, and Russian. Nobel attended the only school
he ever attended as a child in Stockholm for 18 months, from 1841 to 1842. 

Nobel learned Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian. He also honed his
writing skills to the point that he could write poetry in English. His Nemesis is a four-act prose
tragedy about the Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci. It was printed while he was dying, but all
but three copies were destroyed soon after his death because they were considered scandalous
and obscene. It was first published in 2003 in Sweden and has since been translated into
Slovenian, French, Italian, and Spanish.

3. Health and relationships

The majority of Nobel's professional career was spent on the road; he ran businesses in
Europe and America while living in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a reclusive individual
who was prone to depressive spells. He stayed single, despite the fact that his biographers
mention that he had at least three lovers, the first of whom was a girl named Alexandra in Russia
who turned down his marriage proposal. He hired the Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky
as his secretary in 1876, but she only stayed a short time before marrying Baron Arthur
Gundaccar von Suttner, her former lover. Despite the short time she spent with Nobel, she
continued to correspond with him until his passing in 1896 and is likely responsible for him
include a peace prize in his will. She received the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize "for her sincere peace
activities". Nobel's longest-lasting marriage was to Celje native Sofija Hess, whom he met in
1876. The relationship lasted 18 years.

4. Death

In 1891, he relocated from Paris to Sanremo, Italy. On

December 10, 1896, he had a stroke and became largely paralyzed,
unable to talk in his native tongue. At the time of his death, Nobel
was surrounded by paid attendants who did not understand his
native language, so he wrote, "How sad it is to be without a friend
who could whisper a consoling word and would one day gently
close one's eyes." Unbeknownst to his family, he had placed the
majority of his wealth in trust in order to fund the Nobel Prizes. He
is laid to rest in Stockholm's Norra begravningsplatsen. The abstract
metal artwork, made by local artists Sergey Alipov and Pavel
 Vu 5

Shevchenko, resembles an explosion or tree branches. The Nobel family dwelt on

Petrogradskaya Embankment until 1859.

Nobel's critics focus on his leadership role in weapon manufacturing and sales, and others
question his motivations for inventing his prizes, implying that they are intended to boost his
profile.

5. Legacy
The Alfred Nobel Monument in Saint Petersburg is located on the Petrogradskaya
Embankment beside the Bolshaya Nevka River. It was dedicated to commemorating the 90th
anniversary of the first Nobel Prize presentation in 1991. Diplomat Thomas Bertel man and
Professor Arkady Melua were the architects of the 1989 memorial. It was dedicated to
commemorating the 90th anniversary of the first Nobel Prize presentation in 1991. In 1989,
diplomat Thomas Bertelman and Professor Arkady Melua spearheaded the erection of the
memorial. Professor A. Melua contributed finances to the monument's construction (J.S.Co.
"Humanistica", 1990–1991).

III. Inventions
Nobel discovered that
nitroglycerin became safer and
easier to handle when combined
with an absorbent inert substance
like kieselguhr (diatomaceous
earth), and he patented this
mixture as "dynamite" in 1867. At
a quarry in Redhill, Surrey,
England, Nobel made his dramatic
debut that year. Nobel had also considered naming the extremely potent substance "Nobel's
Safety Powder," but ultimately decided on "dynamite," which is a play on the Greek word for
"power." This was done in an effort to help reestablish his name and improve the reputation of
his company after the earlier controversies associated with dangerous explosives.
 Vu 6

Nobel eventually mixed nitroglycerin with other nitrocellulose compounds to create a chemical
that was comparable to collodion and more explosive than dynamite. However, he arrived on a
more effective formula by mixing another nitrate explosive. After being invented in 1876,
gelignite, or blasting gelatin, was used in a variety of additional combinations, some of which
were altered by the addition of potassium nitrate and other compounds. [33] In comparison to the
previously employed compounds, lignite was more stable, portable, and easily molded to fit into
bored holes, such as those used in drilling and mining. The "Age of Engineering" saw its
adoption as the industry norm for mining technologies, bringing Nobel tremendous financial
success but at the expense of his health. Ballistite, a byproduct of this study that is still utilized as
a rocket propellant today and served as a forerunner to many modern smokeless powder
explosives, was created by Nobel.

As far as we can tell, the Nobel Prize is the highest honor in science and society. The Nobel
Prize, in my opinion, is one of the best awards because it helps us learn more about space, the
outside world, and the cosmos.

IV. Nobel 2019

1. Jim Peebles

Phillip James Edwin Peebles OM

FRS (born April 25, 1935) is a Canadian
American physicist and cosmologist who
is currently Albert Einstein's Professor
Emeritus at Princeton University. He is
considered one of the world's leading
theoretical cosmologists since 1970, with
major theoretical contributions to the
synthesis of primordial nuclei, dark
matter, and the cosmic microwave
background. and the configuration to
structure. He was awarded half of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for his theoretical discoveries
in physical cosmology. The two recipients of this award are Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz.
 Vu 7

V. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

0. Basic
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019
recognizes new insights into the structure and
history of the cosmos, as well as the first
finding of a planet circling a solar-type star
beyond our solar system. The Laureates of
this year have helped to answer fundamental
concerns regarding our existence. What
happened in the universe's early days, and
what happened after that? Could there be
more planets orbiting other suns out there?

1. Overview

The 2019 Nobel Prize in

Physics was divided in two,
however, both portions were
awarded for discoveries made
outside of our planet. One was
for a discovery that, by
astronomical standards, was
quite nearby: a planet orbiting a
star that was only 50 light-years
away. The second was for a
general perspective of the
universe. A presentation was presented at a scientific meeting in Florence in October 1995 by
two astronomers from the University of Geneva, Michel Mayor, and Didier Queloz. A planet
outside the solar system had been found a few months previously. It was a gaseous ball nearly
twice the size of Jupiter that was orbiting the star 51 Pegasi at a distance of around 8 million
kilometers, or about 20 percent of the distance between Earth and the sun. It had a surface
temperature of more than 1,000°C and orbited 51 Pegasi once every four terrestrial days as a
result of its close closeness. Astronomers were baffled by the discovery. They had previously
believed that such massive, Jupiter-like planets could only develop far from their host stars.
 Vu 8

The finding of 51 Pegasi b, as the planet is now known, marked the beginning of the study of
exoplanet astronomy. Astronomers have discovered about 4,000 more such planets to date, and
the enormous range of sizes, orbits, and compositions of these objects continues to astound
experts, who have yet to develop a comprehensive physics theory of how planetary systems
arise.

Since planets don't shine on their own, astronomers had to create unique techniques to locate
them. The one Dr. Mayor and Dr. Queloz used is based on the Doppler effect, a phenomenon.
Due to the planet's gravitational attraction on its star, the star will also move somewhat as it
orbits the planet. Similar to how the frequency of an ambulance siren changes when an
ambulance goes by, this will cause the frequency of the starlight that reaches Earth to oscillate
(meaning the star will slightly change color). These days, a second method that detects the
trough in starlight when a planet travels through its disc is more popular. However, Drs. Mayor
and Queloz continue to use the Doppler-shift technique as well.

The half-prize for the overview of the universe went to James Peebles of Princeton University,
who has spent decades developing a theoretical framework to describe how the cosmos evolved
from the Big Bang 13.7bn years ago to the state it finds itself in today. According to Sweden’s
Royal Academy of Science, Dr Peebles was the person who, in the 1960s, shifted cosmology
from speculation to a rigorous science.

Until the first decades of the 20th century, astronomers had assumed the universe to be stationery
and eternal. This was shown to be incorrect in the 1920s, with the discovery that all galaxies are
moving away from each other. In other words, the universe is expanding. Rewind the clock and
this means that, at the start of time, now called the Big Bang, the universe would have been
incredibly small, hot and dense. Around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, it had expanded and
cooled enough for light to travel through space unimpeded. Astronomers can detect the glow of
that first light today but, because its wavelength has been stretched by 13bn years of the
expansion of space, it manifests itself as a background of microwave radiation that fills the entire
sky. This cosmic microwave background was discovered, by accident, in 1964 by radio
astronomers, who used earlier theoretical work by Dr Peebles to explain their discovery. Dr
Peebles also showed that tiny fluctuations in the temperature of the microwave background were
crucial to understanding how matter would later clump together to form galaxies and galaxy
clusters.
 Vu 9

Since the early 1990s, space-based observatories have built up increasingly precise portraits of
the cosmic microwave background (pictured) and, true to Dr Peebles’s predictions, these show
that temperature variations of just one hundred-thousandth of a degree map onto the observed
distribution of matter and energy in the universe.

VI. New perspectives on our place in the universe

1. Beginning
James Peebles took on the
cosmos, with its billions of galaxies
and galaxy clusters. His theoretical
framework, which he developed over
two decades, starting in the mid-1960s,
is the foundation of our modern
understanding of the universe’s
history, from the Big Bang to the
present day. Peebles’ discoveries have
led to insights about our cosmic
surroundings, in which known matter
comprises just five per cent of all the
matter and energy contained in the
universe. The remaining 95 per cent is
hidden from us. This is a mystery and
a challenge to modern physics.

In search of undiscovered planets, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz have surveyed the Milky
Way, our home galaxy. They made the initial finding of an exoplanet—a planet orbiting a solar-
type star—outside of our solar system in 1995. Their discovery upended our preconceived
notions about these peculiar worlds and sparked an astronomical revolution. Given that most of
these planetary systems don't resemble our own, which has the Sun and its planets, the more than
4,000 known exoplanets are remarkable in their diversity of forms. These discoveries have
inspired scientists to create fresh hypotheses regarding the physical mechanisms underlying
planet formation.
 Vu 10

2. Big Bang cosmology begins

The last five decades have been a golden age for cosmology, the study of the universe’s
origin and evolution. In the 1960s, a foundation was laid that would shift cosmology from
speculation to science. The key person in this transition was James Peebles, whose decisive
discoveries put cosmology firmly on the scientific map, enriching the entire field of research. His
first book, Physical Cosmology (1971), inspired a whole new generation of physicists to
contribute to the subject’s development, not only through theoretical considerations but with
observations and measurements. Science and nothing else would answer the eternal questions
about where we come from and where we are going; cosmology was freed from human concepts
such as faith and meaning. This echoes Albert Einstein’s words from early last century, on how
the mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

The story of the universe, a scientific narrative of the cosmos' evolution, has just recently
become understood. Previously, the cosmos was thought to be stationery and eternal, but
astronomers discovered in the 1920s that all galaxies are moving away from each other and from
us. The universe is expanding. We now know that the universe of today differs from the cosmos
of yesterday, and that it will differ again tomorrow.

What the astronomers saw in the heavens was predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of
relativity, which was published in 1916 and is now the foundation for all large-scale
computations about the universe. When Einstein discovered that his theory led to the conclusion
that the universe was collapsing, he added a constant to his equations (the cosmological constant)
to counteract the effects of gravity and bring the cosmos to a halt. This constant was no longer
 Vu 11

required after the universe's expansion was detected more than a decade later. This was Einstein's
biggest error in his life. He had no idea that the cosmological constant would make a stunning
comeback in cosmology in the 1980s, thanks in large part to the work of James Peebles.

Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz have examined our own galaxy, the Milky Way, in search of
undiscovered worlds. They discovered the first exoplanet, or planet beyond our solar system,
orbiting a solar-type star in 1995. Their discovery shook our assumptions about these odd worlds
and sparked an astronomical revolution. The more than 4,000 known exoplanets are remarkable
in their diversity of forms, as most of these planetary systems resemble none other than our own,
with the Sun and its planets. These discoveries have prompted scientists to create new theories
about the fundamental mechanisms that cause planets to form.

3. The first rays of the universe

reveal all
The universe’s expansion
means that it was once much denser
and hotter. In the mid-20th century, its
birth was named the Big Bang. No one
knows what actually happened at the
very beginning, but the early universe
was full of a compact, hot and opaque
particle soup in which light particles,
photons, just bounced around.

Expansion took about 400,000 years to

cool this primordial fluid to a few
thousand degrees Celsius. The original
particles were able to mix, resulting in
a clear gas largely composed of
hydrogen and helium atoms. Photons
could now move freely, and light
could traverse through space. These
first rays continue to fill the universe.
The visible light waves were stretched
by the expansion of space to the range
of invisible microwaves, with a
wavelength of a few centimeters.
 Vu 12

Two American radio astronomers who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978, Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson, were the first to accidentally photograph the glow from the universe's
creation in 1964. They were unable to eliminate the continual "noise" that their antenna was
picking up from every corner of space, so they turned to the studies of other scientists, including
James Peebles, who had theoretically calculated this constant background radiation, for an
explanation. Its temperature has dipped practically to absolute zero (-273°C) after over 14 billion
years. The major discovery was made when Peebles realized that the temperature of the radiation
could tell us how much matter was produced in the Big Bang and that the emission of this light
was crucial in determining how matter could later clump together to form the galaxies and
galaxy clusters that we can now observe in space. The contemporary era of cosmology began
with the discovery of microwave radiation. The early radiation from the beginning of the cosmos
has developed into a treasure trove that provides the solutions to practically everything
cosmologists are interested in learning. When did the universe begin? What happens to it? How
much energy and matter are there?

This chilly afterglow contains remnants of the very earliest seconds of the universe, with minute
fluctuations traveling as soundwaves across the early primordial soup. The universe would have
cooled from a hot ball of fire to a cold and uniform void without these minute variances. We are
aware that this did not occur since space is teeming with galaxies that are frequently clustered
together. Similar to how the surface of the water is smooth, the background radiation is also
smooth; yet, the ripples that represent the fluctuations in the early cosmos are evident up close.

James Peebles has consistently taken the lead in the interpretation of these ancient fossil
remnants. Cosmologists have predicted variations in the background radiation with astonishing
accuracy and demonstrated how they affect the universe's matter and energy. The American
COBE satellite project's lead investigators released an image of the earliest light rays in the
cosmos in April 1992, marking the beginning of the first significant observational advance (John
Mather and George Smoot received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for their work on this
discovery). This picture of the young universe was gradually improved by additional satellites,
including the American WMAP and the European Planck. The otherwise uniform temperature of
the background radiation fluctuated by a hundredth of a degree exactly as predicted. Theoretical
calculations of the universe's matter and energy were confirmed with ever-increasing accuracy;
95% of it is, however, unseen to humans.
 Vu 13

4. Dark matter and

dark energy –
cosmology’s greatest
mysteries
Since the 1930s,
we have known that all we
can see is not all there is.
Measurements of galaxies’
rotational speeds indicated
that they must be held
together by gravity from
invisible matter, otherwise
they would be torn apart. It
was also thought that this
dark matter played an
important role in the origin
of galaxies, long before the primordial soup relaxed its hold on the photons.

The composition of dark matter remains one of cosmology’s greatest mysteries. Scientists long
believed that already-known neutrinos could constitute this dark matter, but the unimaginable
numbers of low-mass neutrinos that cross space at almost the speed of light are far too fast to
help hold matter together. Instead, in 1982, Peebles proposed that heavy and slow particles of
cold dark matter could do the job. We are still searching for these unknown particles of cold dark
matter, which avoid interacting with already known matter and comprise 26 per cent of the
cosmos.

The geometry of space is associated with gravity, according to Einstein's general theory of
relativity - the more mass and energy the universe contains, the more curved space becomes. The
universe does not curve at a critical mass and energy number. This form of cosmos, in which two
parallel lines never intersect, is sometimes referred to as flat. Another possibility is a universe
with insufficient matter, which results in an open universe in which parallel lines eventually
diverge, or a closed universe with insufficient matter, in which parallel lines finally cross.

Measurements of cosmic
background radiation, as well as
theoretical considerations,
 Vu 14

provided a clear answer – the universe is flat. However, the matter it contains is only enough for
31 per cent of the critical value, of which 5 per cent is ordinary matter and 26 per cent is dark
matter. Most of it, 69 per cent, was missing. James Peebles once again provided a radical
solution. In 1984, he contributed to reviving Einstein’s cosmological constant, which is the
energy of empty space. This has been named dark energy and fills 69 per cent of the cosmos.
Along with cold dark matter and ordinary matter, it is enough to support the idea of a flat
universe.

Dark energy remained just a theory for 14 years, until the universe’s accelerating expansion was
discovered in 1998 (Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam
Riess). Something other than matter must be responsible for the increasingly rapid expansion –
 Vu 15

an unknown dark energy is pushing it. Suddenly, this theoretical addendum became a reality that
could be observed in the heavens.

Dark energy and dark matter are now two of cosmology's greatest mysteries. They can only be
distinguished by the effects they have on their environment: one pulls, the other pushes. In
addition, little is known about them. What mysteries are buried on this side of the cosmos that is
dark? What brand-new physics is concealed by the unknowable? What else will we learn as we
work to unravel the enigmas of space?

5. The first planet orbiting another sun

Most cosmologists now agree that the Big Bang model is a true story about the origin and
development of the cosmos, despite only five per cent of its matter and energy now being known.
This tiny slice of matter eventually clumped together to make everything we see around us –
stars, planets, trees and flowers, and humans too. Are we alone in gazing out on the cosmos? Is
there life anywhere else in space, on a planet orbiting another sun? No one knows. But we now
know that our Sun is not alone in having planets, and that most of the several hundred billion
stars in the Milky Way should also have accompanying planets. Astronomers now know of more
than 4,000 exoplanets. Strange new worlds have been discovered, nothing like our own planetary
system. The first was so peculiar that almost no one believed it was true; the planet was too big
to be so close to its host star.

On October 6, 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz reported their astonishing discovery at an
astronomy conference in Florence, Italy. It was the first planet discovered to circle a solar-type
star. 51 Pegasi b revolves swiftly around its star, 51 Pegasi, which is 50 light years away from
 Vu 16

Earth. It takes four days to complete its orbit, implying that it is very close to the star, only eight
million kilometers away. The star heats the planet to above 1,000 degrees Celsius. Things are
calmer on Earth, which orbits the Sun at a distance of 150 million kilometers for a year.

The newly discovered planet was also discovered to be astonishingly huge - a gaseous ball
comparable to Jupiter, the solar system's largest gas giant. Jupiter has a volume 1,300 times
greater than Earth and weights 300 times as much. According to prior theories about how
planetary systems originate, Jupiter-sized planets should have formed distant from their host
stars, taking a long period to orbit them. Jupiter takes over 12 years to complete one circle of the
Sun, therefore 51 Pegasi b's short orbital period caught exoplanet hunters off guard. They'd
looked in the incorrect location.

Two American astronomers, Paul Butler and Geoffrey Marcy, pointed their telescope towards
the star 51 Pegasi shortly after this discovery and were able to quickly corroborate Mayor and
Queloz's ground-breaking discovery. They discovered two new exoplanets around solar-type
stars only a few months later. Astronomers did not have to wait months or years to observe an
exoplanet orbiting its solar thanks to its quick orbital periods. They had time to observe the
planets make successive laps now.
 Vu 17

Starry sky over Stockholm in October. The first planet orbiting a solar-type star to be found
outside our solar system is in the Pegasus constellation. It orbits a star called 51 Pegasi, which is
only visible with the naked eye when it is really dark. However, the four stars that form the
Square of Pegasus are easy to identify.
How had they got so close to the star? The question challenged the existing theory of planetary
origins and led to new theories that described how large balls of gas were created at the edges of
their solar systems, then spiraled inward towards the host star.

6. Refined methods led to the discovery

Exoplanets don't glow on their own; instead, they reflect starlight so weakly that the host
star's brilliant brightness smothers their glow, necessitating sophisticated means to locate them.
The radial velocity approach, which examines how the host star moves as it is impacted by the
planet's gravity, is the technique employed by research teams to identify planets. The star moves
 Vu 18

slightly as well as the planet as they both revolve around the same gravitational center. The star's
position in the line of sight as seen from Earth sways back and forth.

The well-known Doppler effect, which shows that light beams from an object traveling towards
us are bluer and those from an object moving away from us are redder, can be used to estimate
the speed of this movement, known as the radial velocity. This is the same effect we experience
as an ambulance approaches us and then passes us, with the sound of the ambulance changing
pitch.

Thus, the planet's influence alternatively shifts the color of the star's light toward blue or red;
astronomers use their equipment to record these variations in the light's wavelength. The
wavelengths of the star's light can be carefully measured in order to get a direct idea of how
quickly it is moving across space.

The greatest difficulty is the very low radial velocities. For instance, the Sun orbits the solar
system's gravitational center at a speed of around 12 m/s thanks to Jupiter's gravity. If Earth-like
planets are to be found, the technology must be extremely sensitive because the Earth's
contribution is only 0.09 m/s. Astronomers measure thousands of wavelengths simultaneously to
improve accuracy. A spectrograph, which is at the center of these observations, separates the
light into its many wavelengths.
 Vu 19

When Didier Queloz began his research career at the University of Geneva in the early 1990s,
Michel Mayor had already spent many years investigating the movement of the stars, building
his own measuring tools with the assistance of other scholars. Mayor was able to mount his first
spectrograph on a telescope at the Haute-Provence Observatory, 100 kilometers northeast of
Marseille, in 1977. This allowed for lower velocities of roughly 300 m/s, but this was still too
fast to see a planet dragging on its star.

Doctoral student Didier Queloz was tasked with developing new procedures for more exact
measurements alongside the study team. They used a variety of new technologies that allowed
them to look at many stars quickly and analyze the data on the spot. Optical fibers could convey
the starlight to the spectrograph without distorting it, and better digital image sensors, CCDs,
increased the machine's light sensitivity (Charles Kao, Willard Boyle, and George Smith were
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009). Scientists were able to create specialized software
for digital image and data processing as computers became more powerful.

7. A multitude of worlds is revealed

An astronomical revolution began with the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a
solar-type star. There have been thousands of new worlds found that were previously unknown.
Satellites and terrestrial observatories both find new planetary systems at the present time. By
screening more than 200,000 of the nearest stars to us, the American space observatory TESS is
actively looking for planets like Earth. In the past, the Kepler Space Telescope produced
significant results by finding more than 2,300 exoplanets. Transit photometry is being employed
in exoplanet searches together with differences in radial velocity. If a planet is in our line of sight
as it passes in front of a star, this technique analyzes changes in the star's light's intensity as a
result. Astronomers can also see the exoplanet's atmosphere through transit photometry when
light from the star travels towards Earth. The size of the exoplanet can be measured using transit
photometry, while its mass can be calculated using the radial velocity approach, in some cases.
The exoplanet's density can then be calculated, allowing us to establish its structure.
 Vu 20

Exoplanets identified thus far have astounded us with their astonishing range of forms, sizes, and
orbits. They have challenged our preconceived notions about planetary systems and compelled
scholars to alter their views about the physical processes involved in planet formation. With
various programs planned to begin the hunt for exoplanets, we may one day get an answer to the
age-old issue of whether there is other life out there.
 Vu 21

There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, including the Sun, and
planets should be circling the majority of them. Astronomers are still looking in the region of
space nearest to us where they have found more than 4,000 planets orbiting other stars.

Our conceptions of the universe have changed as a result of this year's laureates. While Michel
Mayor and Didier Queloz searched the cosmos for undiscovered planets, James Peebles made
theoretical breakthroughs that helped us comprehend how the universe developed after the Big
Bang. Our understanding of the world has been forever altered by their discoveries.