Michel Mayor

Michel G.E. Mayor
Born	(1942-01-12) 12 January 1942 (age 83) Lausanne, Switzerland
Nationality	Swiss
Alma mater	Lausanne University (M.S., 1966) Geneva University (Ph.D, 1971)
Known for	Discovered first planet orbiting around a normal star, 51 Pegasi
Awards	Prix Jules Janssen (1998) Shaw Prize (2005) Wolf Prize (2017) Nobel Prize in Physics (2019)
Scientific career
Fields	Astrophysics
Institutions	University of Geneva
Thesis	"The kinematical properties of stars in the solar vicinity: possible relation with the galactic spiral structure."

Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor (born 12 January 1942) is a Swiss astrophysicist. He was professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He retired in 2007, but works as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics,^[1] the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize,^[2] and the winner of the 2015 Kyoto Prize.

Together with Didier Queloz in 1995 he discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi.^[3] Because of this, Mayor and Queloz won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star".^[4]

1. ↑ Chang, Kenneth; Specia, Megan (8 October 2019). "Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Cosmic Discoveries - The cosmologist James Peebles split the prize with the astrophysicists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, for work the Nobel judges said "transformed our ideas about the cosmos."". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
2. ↑ "Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize". Vaprize.sci.am. 18 July 2014. Archived from the original on 14 September 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
3. ↑ Michel Mayor profile & Didier Queloz (1995). "A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star". Nature. 378 (6555): 355–59. Bibcode:1995Natur.378..355M. doi:10.1038/378355a0. S2CID 4339201.
4. ↑ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019". Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 8 October 2019.