STOCKHOLM: Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the US won the Nobel Physics Prize on Tuesday for their research into what the Nobel committee called "one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole."
Penrose, 89, was honoured for showing "that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes", while Genzel, 68, and Ghez, 55, were jointly awarded for discovering "that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy," the jury said.
Ghez is just the fourth woman to receive the physics prize since 1901 when the first Nobel prizes were handed out.
"I feel delighted to be recognized in that way because I think having visible role models can make a huge impact on young women thinking about becoming scientists," Ghez told AFP.
The first woman to win the prize was Marie Curie in 1903, who was also the first person to receive two Nobel prizes when she won the 1911 chemistry prize.
The term "black hole" refers to a point in space where matter is so compressed as to create a gravity field from which even light cannot escape.
For years physicists questioned whether black holes could really exist but Penrose, a professor at the University of Oxford, used mathematical modelling to prove back in 1965 that black holes can form.
His calculations proved that black holes -- super dense objects formed when a heavy star collapses under the weight of its own gravity -- are a direct consequence of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which crown the Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry and economics, said Penrose's 1965 article "is still regarded as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein."
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