Los Angeles

UCLA Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez Wins Nobel Prize For Physics

October 6, 2020 / 7:47 AM PDT / KCAL News

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A UCLA astrophysicist was one of three scientists to be awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics Tuesday for her pioneering research on black holes.

David Haviland (L), member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, and Goran K Hansson, Secretary General of the Academy of Sciences, sit in front of a screen displaying the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics (L-R) Briton Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the US, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, on October 6, 2020. - Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the US won the Nobel Physics Prize on Tuesday for their research into black holes, the Nobel jury said. (FREDRIK SANDBERG/AFP/ Getty Images)

Andrea Ghez received the award along with Reinhard Genzel of UC Berkeley and Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy."

Andrea Ghez became just the fourth woman to receive the prestigious award, joining the Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963 and Donna Strickland in 2018, according to a news release from UCLA.

Penrose received one-half of the award, while Ghez and Genzel share the other half.

Penrose was awarded "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity."

Genzel and Ghez were honored "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy."

"I'm thrilled and incredibly honored to receive a Nobel Prize in physics," said Ghez in a statement. "The research the Nobel committee is honoring today is the product of a wonderful collaboration among the scientists in the UCLA Galactic Center Orbits Initiative and the University of California's wise investment in the W.M. Keck Observatory."

UCLA