PARIS (ESA PR) — ESA congratulates 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who have been awarded the prestigious prize for the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star, and James Peebles, honoured for the theoretical framework of cosmology used to investigate the Universe on its largest scales.

PARIS (ESA PR) — ESA’s space power experts congratulate the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for their invention of lithium-ion batteries. These energy-dense, long-lasting and rechargeable batteries have revolutionised the modern world, found in everything from smartphones to laptops to cars. They have had the same revolutionary effect in space.

• Their discovery of the exoplanet 51 Pegasi b in 1995 spawned a revolution in astronomy.
• The Search for exoplanets is becoming increasingly important at DLR.
• The two ESA missions CHEOPS (2019) and PLATO (2026) will focus on Earth-like planets.
• Focus: astronomy, exploration, search for exoplanets, astrobiology

COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — The discovery of the first exoplanet almost 25 years ago changed our perception of the origin and evolution of the Universe and challenged the uniqueness of our own Solar System. Today, scientists from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and other organisations are using new techniques and instruments on ESA missions such as CHEOPS and PLATO to set their sights even higher – the hunt for a second Earth.