Saul Perlmutter

Saul Perlmutter is an American astrophysicist who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that the universe's expansion is accelerating.

Brian Schmidt: An Australian-American astrophysicist who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the universe's accelerating expansion. He led the competing High-Z Supernova Search Team, which independently found the same acceleration.
Type Ia supernova: A thermonuclear stellar explosion whose relatively uniform peak brightness makes it useful for measuring astronomical distances. These explosions served as distance indicators in the teams' comparison of expansion across cosmic history.
High-Z Supernova Search Team: An international collaboration that used distant Type Ia supernovae to investigate the universe's expansion history. Its independent observations confirmed the acceleration discovered by Perlmutter's group.
Accelerating expansion of the universe: The observation that the universe's expansion rate increases with cosmic time. Perlmutter's supernova measurements helped establish this change in the universe's expansion history.
Adam Riess: An American astrophysicist who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the universe's accelerating expansion. His analysis of distant supernovae helped establish the High-Z team's independent result.
Standard candle: An astronomical object whose known or calibrated luminosity allows its distance to be estimated from apparent brightness. Type Ia supernovae functioned as calibrated candles for Perlmutter's distant-universe measurements.
1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe: The late-1990s finding, based on distant Type Ia supernovae, that cosmic expansion is accelerating. This was the central result of the observational program Perlmutter led.
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics: The Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe. The prize recognized the observational discovery Perlmutter led with the Supernova Cosmology Project.
Robert Kirshner: An American astronomer known for research on supernovae and for leading the High-Z Supernova Search Team. He mentored team members and led the collaboration that reached the same conclusion.
Redshift: An increase in the wavelength of light caused by motion away from an observer or by cosmic expansion. Supernova spectra provided redshifts, placing measured distances at different stages of cosmic expansion.

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