C19. Astrophysics

Recent Prizes in Astrophysics and Related Topics

Three Dan David prizes of US$ 1 million each are annually awarded for achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world. Each year fields are chosen within the three Time Dimensions - Past, Present and Future. In 2009 the prize PAST went to Andrew E. Lange, Paul Richards and Maarten Schmidt for the studies on the History of the Universe.

The Kavli Prizes were awarded for the first time in Oslo on 9 September, 2008. The astrophysics prize was awarded jointly to Maarten Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, US, and Donald Lynden-Bell, of Cambridge University.

The Peter Gruber Foundation Award in Cosmology in 2008 went to J. Richard Bond and his collaborators for ideas on the nature and behaviour of dark matter.
This is an annual award, currently set at $500,000 (see www.petergruberfoundation.org for instructions on how to nominate a candidate).

The 2008 Crafoord Award in astronomy given by the Swedish Academy
of Sciences was presented to Rashid Alievich Sunyaev, Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia and Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Germany, "for his decisive contributions to high-energy astrophysics and cosmology, in particular processes and dynamics around black holes and neutron stars and demonstration of the diagnostic power of structures in the background radiation".

The million dollar Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2008 went to Reinhard Genzel in recognition of his outstanding contributions in demonstrating that the
Milky Way contains a supermassive black hole at its centre.