Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find

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Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find

Three researchers behind the discovery that our Universe's expansion is accelerating have been awarded this year's Nobel prize for physics.

Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the US and Brian Schmidt of Australia will divide the prize.

The trio studied so-called Type 1 supernovae to determine that more distant objects seem to move faster.

Their observations suggest that not only is the Universe expanding, its expansion is relentlessly speeding up.

The finding forms the basis of our current understanding of the Universe's origins, but raises a number of difficult questions.

For example, the predominant theory of what makes up the Universe evokes what is known as dark energy - in order to explain the expansion, the Universe must be made up of about three-quarters dark energy.

Prof Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded half the 10m Swedish krona (£940,000) prize, with Prof Schmidt of the Australian National University and Prof Riess of Johns Hopkins University's Space Telescope Science Institute sharing the other half.

Prof Schmidt spoke to the Nobel commitee from Australia during the ceremony.

"It feels like when my children were born," he said.

"I feel weak at the knees, very excited and somewhat amazed by the situation. It's been a pretty exciting last half hour."

In 2006, the same trio shared the Shaw prize in astronomy for their findings.

The Nobel prizes have been given out annually since 1901, covering the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics.

Tuesday's award of the 2011 prize for physiology or medicine went to Bruce Beutler of the US, Jules Hoffmann from France and Ralph Steinman from Canada for their work on immunology.

This year's chemistry prize will be announced on Wednesday.

Source: BBC News

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congratulations to all the winners, their contributions to humanity are much appreciated!