Scientists Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole, the award-giving body said on Tuesday.
"The discoveries of this year's Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects," David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said on awarding the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that Briton Roger Penrose will receive half of this year's prize "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity."
Goran K. Hansson, the academy's secretary-general, said German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez will receive the second half of the prize "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy."
