Didier Queloz

Didier Queloz
Queloz in 2017
Born (1966-02-23) 23 February 1966
Switzerland
NationalitySwiss
EducationUniversity of Geneva (MS, DEA, PhD)
Known forFirst person to find a planet orbiting a Sun-like star outside of the Solar System
AwardsWolf Prize in Physics (2017)
Nobel Prize in Physics (2019)
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
Institutions
ThesisRecherches liées à la spectroscopie par corrélation croisée numérique; (INTER-TACOS: guide de l'utilisateur) (1995)
Doctoral advisorMichel Mayor

Didier Patrick Queloz FRS (French pronunciation: [didje kəlo, kelo]; born 23 February 1966) is a Swiss astronomer. He is the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a professor at the University of Geneva. Together with Michel Mayor in 1995, he discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a Sun-like star, 51 Pegasi. For this discovery, he shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics with Mayor and Jim Peebles. In 2021, he was announced as the founding director of the Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life at ETH Zurich.