天文学奖
2020

2020年度邵逸夫天文学奖颁予罗杰 • 布兰福德 (Roger D Blandford) 以表彰他对理论天体物理学的根本性贡献，特别是在活跃星系核的基本理解、相对论性喷流的形成和准直、黑洞的能量提取机制和激波中的粒子加速及其相关的辐射机制。罗杰 • 布兰福德是美国史丹福大学文理学院卢克•布鲁森讲座教授、物理学教授暨粒子物理学及天文物理学教授。

罗杰 • 布兰福德是当代最出色的全方位理论天体物理学家之一。他关注极为广泛的天体物理学问题，作出了重大贡献，堪称为一位罕有的「全才」科学家。他是引力透镜效应模拟和诠析方面的先驱。他对来自费米太空船的γ射线数据的分析，和引力波的研究，均有建树。他在研究领域最重要的贡献，是对活跃星系核及其相对论性喷流的基本理解。

In 1918, the American astronomer Heber Curtis used the Crossley Reflector at Lick Observatory in California to take optical photographs of nearby galaxies. When observing M87, the central elliptical galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster 53 million light years from the Sun, Curtis noted the lack of a spiral structure and observed a “curious straight ray … apparently connected with the nucleus by a thin line of matter”. This measurement heralded the discovery of radio jets, the ejection of highly collimated, relativistic plasma streams or “blobs”, from a central energy source. Forty years later radio astronomers in the UK and Australia discovered a new class of “radio stars” not obviously connected with bright optical nebulae. Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt then used the large 5 m Hale telescope on Palomar to identify a faint, compact optical nebula associated with one of these radio stars, 3C273. Schmidt interpreted the substantial (16%) redshift of all spectral lines in the optical spectrum as being caused by the expansion of the Universe. If so, 3C273 must be 2.4 billion light years from us, 45 times further away than M87, and the optical luminosity of the faint compact speck would have to be about one thousand times greater than the 100 billion stars of our Milky Way. Thus began the subject of quasars, quasi-stellar radio sources. Many quasars and other somewhat less spectacular “active galactic nuclei” (AGN) exhibit powerful radio jets.