20th anniversary
“They both live on another planet now.”
Willy Benz is particularly pleased about this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for the Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. He was Michel Mayor’s first PhD student at the University of Geneva. Today he is Professor at the University of Bern, Director of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS and President […]
Continue Reading
Where it all started in 1995
When Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz found the first exoplanet orbiting another solar-type star twenty years ago, Swiss TV documented the historic discovery. Have a look at the young researchers in this video that was first broadcasted on 7 December 1995.
Watch Video
Strange Worlds
Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz return to Southern France and tell the story of their historic discovery five years after the breakthrough in a TV documentary.
Watch Video
51 Peg b – top secret
Studying the data collected at the Observatory of Haute-Provence the astronomers in Geneva knew something big was coming. But they kept their secret and worked hard to eliminate all sources of error. The Summer of 1995 – like every day at noon, astronomers from the Geneva Observatory interrupted their work for lunch in the cafeteria. […]
Continue Reading
“I could not believe it”
51 Peg b changed our view of the Universe – and the life of its discoverers, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. “I thought there was something not working in the software,” remembers Didier Queloz his first reaction when he analyzed the data collected with the spectrometer called ELODIE. Has it always been a goal to discover […]
Continue Reading
Michel Mayor
Born: 12.01.1942 Study: Physics at the University of Lausanne PhD: 1971 at the University of Geneva Professor at the University of Geneva since 1984 Honorary Professor since 2007, official year of retirement Designer of the spectrographs ELODIE (51pegb), CORALIE and HARPS discovering more than 500 exoplanets Among many other honors the price of the journal […]
Continue Reading
Didier Queloz
Born: 23 February 1966 Study: Physics at the University of Geneva PhD: 1995 at the University of Geneva Current Position: Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University and Geneva University. Didier Queloz is at the origin of the exoplanet revolution in astrophysics. Until recently, the Solar System has provided us with the […]
Continue Reading
«The diversity is huge»
When Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a normal star twenty years ago, they started a revolution in astronomy: An ancient human dream became research reality. «There is an infinite number of worlds, some like and some unlike our own.» With this quote by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, the Genevan astronomer […]
Continue Reading
