Roger Penrose, Reynard Genzel, and Andrea Gez were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about black holes. “The recipients of the award have shed light on the darkest secrets of our world.” – Said the Secretary-General of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Goran Hanson.

Penrose, a mathematical physicist at the University of Oxford, was awarded the prize for proving that the formation of black holes is a direct result of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein himself did not believe in the existence of black holes, super-heavy monsters that absorb everything and from which nothing can escape, not even light.

In January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Penrose proved that black holes could indeed be formed and described in detail; It is still considered that his innovative article, after Einstein, made the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity.

Reynard Genzel and Andrea Gez lead groups of astronomers independently of each other. Since the 1990s, they have focused on a region called the center of our galaxy called Sagittarius A, and with increasing accuracy described the orbits of its brightest stars. The results of their measurements are in agreement with each other, both of them have discovered an extremely heavy, invisible object that attracts a cluster of stars and causes them to move rapidly. In this region, which is not larger than the solar system, about four million suns are concentrated. Using the world’s largest telescopes, Genzel and Gez developed methods to see interstellar gas and dust clouds behind a deer leap center. They created new tools to overcome the image distortion and other obstacles created by the Earth’s atmosphere. Their writings have given us the most plausible evidence that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of Deer Leap.

“The findings of this year’s laureates have paved the way for the study of tight supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still raise many questions and motivate us for future research. – says Devi Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee on Physics.