Michel Mayor
Michel Mayor ( born January 12, 1942 in Echallens, Canton of Vaud ) is a Swiss professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Geneva.
He is responsible for the discovery of the first extrasolar planet in orbit around a Sun-like star.
With the assistance of his colleague Didier Queloz in 1995 he was able to demonstrate a 51 Pegasi rotating Jupiter-like planets by means of a high-resolution spectrograph.
The existence of 51 Pegasi b, the name of the planet, was confirmed on 12 October 1995 by the U.S. scientists Geoffrey Marcy and Butler, and thus is considered a milestone in the history of astronomy.
After studying physics at the University of Lausanne Mayor doctorate in 1971 at the Geneva Observatory in the Department of Astronomy. He remained employed at this institution with the exception of stays at the Observatory of Cambridge, at the European Southern Observatory ( ESO) in Chile and at the Observatory Hawaii. Until 2005, he authored more than 300 scientific publications.
From 1989 to 1992 he chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of ESO from 1988 to 1991, the Commission to the galactic structure in the International Astronomical Union from 1990 to 1993, the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy.
Since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b Michel Mayor was involved in many other extra-solar planet discoveries with his research team.
Since 2013 it is one of Thomson Reuters due to the number of its citations to favorites to a Nobel Prize (Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates ).