果冻影院

Professor Ellis will receive a $500,000 USD (拢399k) award for his contributions to the fields of galaxy evolution and developments in optical astronomy at a ceremony that will take place this summer in Marseille, France.

As an observer, Professor Ellis has redefined cosmology, the science that studies the growth of the universe. As the speed of light is finite, astronomers can trace the evolution of galactic structures in reverse, starting with the nearest and most mature and extending to the earliest and most primitive. Over the decades Professor Ellis has repeatedly led surveys of galaxies farther and farther, earlier and earlier across the cosmic landscape.

As 鈥渢he leading authority on galaxy evolution,鈥� as one Gruber nominator called him, Professor Ellis has for decades been a fixture on astronomical projects requiring deep probes. In the mid-1990s he was the sole Europe-based member on the committee to outline the scientific goals for what was then the Next Generation Space Telescope and is now the James Webb Space Telescope. He was a natural fit for the Supernova Cosmology Project, one of the two teams that discovered evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Professor Ellis, who last year was awarded the Royal Medal A from the Royal Society, was also the principal investigator on the 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign, which provided the first census of star-forming galaxies less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

As Ellis鈥檚 observations have taken him farther and farther across the universe into realms that were previously inaccessible, he has found himself needing to adopt or invent new tools.

One challenge was to observe the light from distant galaxies. To do this, Professor Ellis was one of the first astronomers to use massive galaxy clusters as 鈥済ravitational lenses鈥� that magnify the otherwise inaccessible light 鈥渂ehind鈥� them.

Realising the challenges of efficiently studying faint galaxies, the astrophysics professor has devoted much of his career to promoting innovative instruments. He devised, funded, and oversaw the development of several forms of spectrographs that allow astronomers to study gas compositions in the earliest star-forming galaxies. In turn, those instruments have helped other cosmologists make discoveries about the fundamental nature of the early universe.

Professor Ellis said: 鈥淚鈥檓 honoured to receive this distinguished life-time award from the Gruber Foundation, particularly as many of its earlier laureates are my personal heroes. I鈥檝e been privileged to live during a golden era in observational astronomy where technological progress has enabled amazing discoveries.

鈥淚 thank all my colleagues over the years, including my many former graduate students who have helped me in my scientific adventure to uncover how galaxies formed and evolved.鈥�

As the Gruber Foundation described, Professor Ellis鈥檚 dual proficiency in observation and instrumentation would alone make him an anomaly among astrophysicists. That his contributions in both areas have proved revolutionary might well make him unique.

Professor Ivan Parkin, Dean of 果冻影院 Mathematical & Physical Sciences, commented:听鈥淚 am delighted to learn that Richard has been awarded the Gruber prize.听 This is the most prestigious prize in Cosmology and is thoroughly deserved."

Professor Ellis will receive the award as well as a gold laureate pin at a ceremony that will take place in July at the 鈥楽hedding New Light on the First Billion Years of the Universe鈥� conference organized by the Galaxies, Etoiles et Cosmologie (GECO) team of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique of Marseille in France.

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• 果冻影院 Department of Physics and Astronomy
• 果冻影院 Mathematical & Physical Sciences

Media contact听

Molly Bridge

E: molly.bridge [at] ucl.ac.uk