The Nobel Prize for Physics 2011 has been awarded to U.S. and Australian cosmology researchers, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Tuesday.
Americans Saul Perlmutter and Adam G. Riess, and Australian Brian P. Schmidt won the Nobel Prize "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae."
In 2007, Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt won the Gruber Prize in Cosmology, the most prestigious award in this field. Since then, they have been the most likely candidates for the Nobel Prize.
Last year the prize was awarded to Russian-born Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov working in Britain for their research in two-dimensional material graphene.
On Wednesday, the Nobel Prize committee will announce the winner(s) of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The prize in each nomination is worth 10 million Swedish kronas (1 million euros). The awarding ceremony is to be held in Stockholm on December 10, the day of Alfred Nobel's death (1833-1896).
