OREANDA-NEWS. Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roger Penrose (Great Britain), Reinhard Genzel (USA) and Andrea Ghez (USA) for space exploration. Penrose will receive the prize for discovering that black holes support the general theory of relativity. Genzel and Ghez will receive an award for the discovery of a supermassive compact object in the center of the galaxy Milky Way.

“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics with one half to Roger Penrose and the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez,” the message posted on Twitter reads.

In 1965, Penrose calculated that black holes could form during the gravitational collapse of large stars. This work is still considered the most important contribution to general theory of relativity since the time of Albert Einstein.

The press release of the Nobel Committee speaks of “the Milky Way’s darkest secret,” in the center of which, as it was proved by two groups of astronomers, led by Genzel and Ghez, there is an invisible extremely heavy object.

The size of the Nobel Prize in 2020 was increased by 1 million Swedish kronas, to 10 million (about 1.12 million US dollars).