Michel Mayor

Michel Mayor is a Swiss astronomer who co-discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet found orbiting a Sun-like star. He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics with Didier Queloz.

Didier Queloz: Swiss astronomer who co-discovered 51 Pegasi b with Michel Mayor and shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mayor and Queloz jointly announced the planet’s discovery in 1995.
Doppler spectroscopy: A method that infers motion along the line of sight from shifts in a source’s spectral lines. Mayor’s planet searches used stellar spectral shifts to detect motion toward and away from Earth.
Haute-Provence Observatory: An astronomical observatory in southeastern France, home to the telescope used for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b. Mayor and Queloz made their decisive observations there.
Exoplanet: A planet orbiting a star other than the Sun, or a stellar remnant. Mayor’s discovery helped establish exoplanets as a major field of astronomical research.
Georges Meynet: Swiss astrophysicist whose research includes stellar evolution and the chemical enrichment of galaxies. Meynet was Mayor’s doctoral student and later collaborated with him on stellar research.
Radial velocity method: An exoplanet detection technique that measures a star’s motion toward or away from an observer. This was the method that revealed the periodic stellar wobble caused by 51 Pegasi b.
Geneva Observatory: A Swiss astronomical research institution based in Versoix near Geneva. Mayor’s research career and the planet-search team were based at Geneva Observatory.
Exoplanet detection: The observation and confirmation of planets beyond the Solar System using indirect or direct methods. The discovery prompted sustained searches using multiple detection techniques.
Stéphane Udry: Swiss astronomer known for research on exoplanets and for leading teams that found planets around nearby stars. Udry succeeded Mayor in leadership of Geneva’s exoplanet research group.
ELODIE spectrograph: A high-resolution spectrograph installed at the Haute-Provence Observatory and used to search for exoplanets. Mayor and Queloz used ELODIE to obtain the measurements leading to their discovery.

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