Didier Queloz
2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics
The Exoplanet Revolution and Life in the Universe
Didier Queloz is a Professor of Physics at ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge, renowned for his pioneering contributions to astrophysics. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Geneva, where he and Michel Mayor discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 1995—a groundbreaking discovery that revolutionized astronomy and launched an entirely new era in the search for life beyond Earth. In 2019, Queloz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Mayor and James Peebles. Today, Didier Queloz is devoted to his role as Head of the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (COPL) at ETH Zurich, where he leads a major interdisciplinary research initiative focused on detecting Earth-like planets and deepening our understanding of planetary systems, conditions for habitability, and the origins of life in the universe.
