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Michel Mayor et Didier Queloz, 2019 physics Nobel prize winners

11 October 2019

Michel Mayor, 2008 Paris Observatory Doctor Honoris Causa, and Didier Queloz are Physics Nobel Prize winners for October 8th 2019. A well merited international recognition for their exeptional work.

Michel Mayor at the Observatory of Paris October 23 2008.
Pascal Blondé, Observatoire de Paris

The Paris Observatory salutes the Nobel Physics Prize awarded to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their discovery in 1995 of the first exoplanet.

Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz have made an outstanding contribution to a new view of the Universe via their discovery of an extrasolar planet, I.e. a planet orbitting a star other than the Sun.

This exceptional result was due to various observational improvement made by them and, including the development of a new generation of spectrographs.

They have also developed a method know as the «radial velocity method», which uses spectrographs to measure exoplanet speeds.

In recognition of the excellence of this work and the special relation established with the Paris Observatory, Michel Mayor had already received on October 23rd 2008 the title of Docteur honoris causa of the Paris Observatory.

From left to right: Chen Fang, Daniel Egret, Michel Mayor, and Stephen Ridgway.
De gauche à droite : Cheng Fang, Daniel Egret (ancien Président de l’Observatoire de Paris), Michel Mayor et Stephen Ridgway.
Crédits : Pascal Blondé, Observatoire de Paris

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia

Since February 1995, the Paris Observatory maintains an official on-line encyclopaedia of extra-solar planets: http://exoplanet.eu/

How does none detect an exoplanet?

Extract of a Mondes video clip, made by Patrick Baud alias Axolot

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