Black hole discovery helps Roger Penrose, Andrea Ghez, Reinhard Genzel win Nobel

This year's prize celebrates the discovery of one of the most exotic objects in our universe, the black hole. This year's prize is about the darkest secrets of the universe. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has today decided to award the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics with one half to Roger Penrose for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity, and the other half jointly to Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy. This year's prize celebrates the discovery of one of the most exotic objects in our universe, the black hole. For many years, physicists questioned the very idea of a black hole, treating it as a peculiarity in our theory of gravity. Roger Penrose showed that black holes might really exist, forming in a stable and robust process consistent with the theory of general relativity. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez led research teams to make precise observations over many years which pointed to the existence of a supermassive black hole in the center of our very own galaxy. We are not requesting that the Nobel laureates come to Stockholm in December this year to pick up their prizes. Because of the pandemic, we plan for digital Nobel lectures and a digital prize ceremony with laureates participating over video links. We are still working on these events together with the Nobel Foundation and of course from now on with the laureates themselves and we'll come back with more information as soon as it becomes available. But already at this stage, I can assure you that the Nobel laureates will receive their awards before the end of the year and that they will be invited to Stockholm next time we can celebrate the Nobel Prize in the traditional way here in Stockholm in December.