2020 Nobel Prize in Physics Honors Pioneering Black Hole Discoveries
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists for groundbreaking research on black holes. Roger Penrose proves their existence mathematically, while Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discover a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists for their groundbreaking discoveries about black holes. Roger Penrose receives one half of the prize for proving that black holes are a direct and robust consequence of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Using ingenious mathematical methods, Penrose shows in 1965 that these inescapable monsters really can form, detailing how all known laws of nature cease at their singular center.
Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez share the other half of the prize for discovering a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy. Since the early 1990s, each scientist leads a group of astronomers that closely tracks a region called Sagittarius A* at the heart of the Milky Way. Their precise measurements map the orbits of the brightest stars closest to the galactic center.
Both independent research groups find that an extremely heavy, invisible object pulls on this jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds. Weighing in at around four million solar masses, this supermassive black hole remains the only currently known explanation for this mysterious cosmic phenomenon.