The Nobel Prize 2020 in Physics, A Groundbreaking Discovery on Black Holes

Three scientists, Roger Penrose, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel got the Nobel prize 2020 in physics for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity", the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy."Announcement of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics by Professor Göran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on 6 October 2020.

Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole. Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes.

Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation.

Roger Penrose proved that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Roger Penrose proved that black holes really exist.

Since the early 1990s, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez focused on a region called Sagittarius A at the centre of our galaxy. They found an invisible object that pulls on the jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds.

They used a method and world's largest telescope to see the huge clouds of interstellar gas and dust to the centre of the Milky Way.