Nobel Winners Keep Eyes on the Real Prize: Solving Dark Energy Riddle

by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer

Date: 08 December 2011 Time: 12:32 PM ET

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Saul Perlmutter (left), Brian Schmidt (center) and Adam Riess (right) at a news conference on Dec. 7, 2011 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Perlmutter, Schmidt and Riess won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of the accelerating universe. CREDIT: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences/KVA TV View full size image

The three scientists who won this year's Nobel Prize in physics are certainly not resting on their laurels. The trio of astrophysicists received their prizes at a ceremony in Stockholm on Saturday (Dec. 10) for the groundbreaking discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe. But the researchers are already looking forward to the next major breakthroughs in their field.
Saul Perlmutter of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University and Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute spoke before an audience yesterday (Dec. 7) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm during the so-called Nobel Week to celebrate the year's soon-to-be-crowned laureates.
The surprising discovery that the universe's expansion is picking up speed, rather than slowing down as was expected, was made by two teams — one led by Perlmutter, and the other headed by Schmidt and Riess.

MORE: http://www.space.com/13866-nobel-prize-physics-accelerating-universe-dark-energy.html

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