The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics
The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics will be awarded for outstanding achievement in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the origin, evolution, and properties of the universe, including the fields of cosmology, astrophysics, astronomy, planetary science, solar physics, space science, astrobiology, astronomical and astrophysical instrumentation, and particle astrophysics.
Maarten Schmidt and Donald Lynden-Bell receive the first Kavli Prize in astrophysics from Crown Prince Haakon. (Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen/Scanpix) Astrophysics
Only in the last century did scientists really begin to understand the physics of the
cosmos. Putting eyes to telescopes and pencils to paper, 20th century observers and theorists were the first to grasp the vastness of space and glimpse the diversity of its contents. The points of light rotating overhead at night, those explorers discovered, are to the cosmos as a cover to a book. And the book turned out to be an elaborate mystery story; full of peculiar characters and surprising plot twists, with the ending still unwritten.
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The 2008 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics
was awarded jointly to Maarten Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, US, and Donald Lynden-Bell, of Cambridge University, UK, both of whose work underpins our understanding of quasars.
