Light on black holes wins Nobel

Physics prize shared by British, German, U.S. scientists

David Haviland, member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, left, and Goran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Academy of Sciences, announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Tuesday Oct. 6, 2020. The three winners on the screen from left, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez have won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for black hole discoveries. (Fredrik Sandberg/TT via AP)
David Haviland, member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, left, and Goran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Academy of Sciences, announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Tuesday Oct. 6, 2020. The three winners on the screen from left, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez have won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for black hole discoveries. (Fredrik Sandberg/TT via AP)

STOCKHOLM -- Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for establishing the all-too-weird reality of black holes -- the straight-out-of-science-fiction cosmic monsters that suck up light and time and will eventually swallow us, too.

Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the United States explained to the world these dead ends of the cosmos that are still not completely understood but are deeply connected, somehow, to the creation of galaxies.

Penrose, an 89-year-old at the University of Oxford, received half of the prize for proving with mathematics in 1964 that Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity predicted the formation of black holes, even though Einstein himself didn't think they existed.

[Video not showing up above? Click here to view » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKJ_wPKoRfk]

Genzel, who is at both the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of California, Berkeley, and Ghez, of the University of California, Los Angeles, received the other half of the prize for discovering in the 1990s a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Black holes fascinate people because "the idea of some monster out there sucking everything up is a pretty weird thing," Penrose said an interview with The Associated Press. He said our galaxy and the galaxies near us "will ultimately get swallowed by one utterly huge black hole. This is the fate ... but not for an awful long time, so it's not something to worry too much about."

Black holes are at the center of every galaxy, and smaller ones dot the universe. Just their existence is mind-bending. They are so massive that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. They warp and twist light in a way that seems unreal and cause time to slow and stop.

"Black holes, because they are so hard to understand, is what makes them so appealing," Ghez, 55, said after becoming the fourth woman ever to win a Nobel in physics. "I really think of science as a big, giant puzzle."

While the three scientists showed the existence of black holes, it wasn't until last year that people could see one for themselves when another science team captured the first and only optical image of one.

Penrose, a mathematical physicist, was surprised at his winning because his work is more theoretical than observational, and that's not usually what wins physics Nobels.

What fascinated Penrose more than the black hole was what was at the other end of it, something called the "singularity." It's something science still can't figure out.

"Singularity, that's a place where the densities and curvatures go to infinity. You expect the physics go crazy," he said from his home. "If you fall into a black hole, then you pretty well inevitably get squashed into this singularity at the end. And that's the end."

Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, noted that Penrose triggered a "renaissance" in the study of relativity in the 1960s, and that, together with a young Stephen Hawking, he helped firm up evidence for the Big Bang and black holes.

"Penrose and Hawking are the two individuals who have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity," Rees said. "Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit."

Hawking died in 2018, and Nobel Prizes are awarded only to the living.

Genzel, 68, and Ghez won because "they showed that black holes are not just theory -- they're real, they're here, and there's a monster-size black hole in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way," said Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist and mathematician at Columbia University.

In the 1990s, Genzel and Ghez, leading separate groups of astronomers, trained their sights on the dust-covered center of our Milky Way galaxy, a region called Sagittarius A(asterisk), where something strange was going on. It was "an extremely heavy, invisible object that pulls on the jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds," according to the Nobel Committee.

It was a black hole. Not just an ordinary black hole, but a supermassive one, 4 million times the mass of our sun.

The first image Ghez got was in 1995, using the Keck Telescope in Hawaii that had just gone online. A year later, another image seemed to indicate that the stars near the center of the Milky Way were circling something. A third image led Ghez and Genzel to think they were really on to something.

The Nobel comes with a gold medal and 10 million kronor (more than $1.1 million), courtesy of a bequest left 124 years ago by the prize's creator, Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

Information for this article was contributed by Christina Larson of The Associated Press.

FILE - This June 26, 2015 file photo shows Roger Penrose. The 2020 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez for discoveries relating to black holes. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP)
FILE - This June 26, 2015 file photo shows Roger Penrose. The 2020 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez for discoveries relating to black holes. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP)
Reinhard Genzel, right,  astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, celebrates his Nobel Prize in Physics with his team in Garching, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. (Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
Reinhard Genzel, right, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, celebrates his Nobel Prize in Physics with his team in Garching, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. (Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
Reinhard Genzel, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, celebrates his Nobel Prize in Physics with his team in Garching, Germany, Tuesday, Oct., 2020. (Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
Reinhard Genzel, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, celebrates his Nobel Prize in Physics with his team in Garching, Germany, Tuesday, Oct., 2020. (Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
This image provided Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope, shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world. Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, for establishing the all-too-weird reality of black holes. Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the United States explained to the world these dead ends of the cosmos that are still not completely understood but are deeply connected, somehow, to the creation of galaxies. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP)
This image provided Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope, shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world. Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, for establishing the all-too-weird reality of black holes. Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the United States explained to the world these dead ends of the cosmos that are still not completely understood but are deeply connected, somehow, to the creation of galaxies. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP)
FILE - In this July 25, 2000 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II awards Roger Penrose with the Insignia of a Member of the Order of Merit at Buckingham Palace in London. The 2020 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez for discoveries relating to black holes. (Fiona Hanson/PA via AP)
FILE - In this July 25, 2000 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II awards Roger Penrose with the Insignia of a Member of the Order of Merit at Buckingham Palace in London. The 2020 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez for discoveries relating to black holes. (Fiona Hanson/PA via AP)
Roger Penrose poses for a photographer in Oxford, England, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Three scientists Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe and still confound astronomers.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Roger Penrose poses for a photographer in Oxford, England, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Three scientists Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe and still confound astronomers.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, poses during an interview at the university in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Ghez was one of three scientists who was awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe. (AP Photo/Aron Ranen)
Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, poses during an interview at the university in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Ghez was one of three scientists who was awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe. (AP Photo/Aron Ranen)
Roger Penrose poses for a photographer in Oxford, England, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Three scientists Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe and still confound astronomers.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Roger Penrose poses for a photographer in Oxford, England, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Three scientists Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe and still confound astronomers.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
This combination of 2020 and 2015 photos shows, from left, Reinhard Genzel, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics; Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, and Roger Penrose, of the University of Oxford. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for advancing our understanding of black holes. (Matthias Balk/dpa, Elena Zhukova/UCLA, Danny Lawson/PA via AP)
This combination of 2020 and 2015 photos shows, from left, Reinhard Genzel, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics; Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, and Roger Penrose, of the University of Oxford. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for advancing our understanding of black holes. (Matthias Balk/dpa, Elena Zhukova/UCLA, Danny Lawson/PA via AP)

Upcoming Events