For a decade, no one believed he found a planet outside solar system

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2 years ago

January 19, 2023

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SINGAPORE He was the first to discover a planet outside the solar system, but his work was dismissed for a decade before being rightfully recognised with the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Delivering the opening lecture of the 11th Global Young Scientists Summit at the Singapore University of Technology and Design on Tuesday, Professor Didier Queloz shared about his scientific journey as an astronomer.

He specialises in exoplanets, looking for planets that orbit sun-like stars outside the solar system.

The Swiss Nobel laureate was the harbinger of the exoplanet revolution, which has catalysed the discovery of more than 5,000 exoplanets to date.

Yet, even he and his supervisor, Professor Michel Mayor, doubted their own discovery in 1995.

Nobody was expecting a planet back then, so it was a big surprise when I saw the data. I found the planet and said: Whats going on? I thought something was wrong with the equipment, but after checking, I realised there really was something orbiting that star, Prof Didier, 56, told The Straits Times in an interview.

First I had to convince Michel that I was right, then the scientific community, which was really tough. For the next 10 years, nobody believed it, so it was a rough time for me as a young scientist, said Prof Didier, who was a PhD student at the University of Geneva at that time.

Only when the physics was more understood and established did people start to realise, oh, that guy did it.

Prof Didiers discovery of a class of giant gas planets closely orbiting their parent star, known as hot Jupiters, upset existing theories about the formation of the solar system and other planetary systems. Hot Jupiters contradicted predictions that only rocky planets orbit near the parent star, while larger gas planets do so further away.

Before his findings, theories were based only on observations made in the solar system. Astronomers are now working on theories that account for the migration of gas giants from outer to inner orbits.

The first shock was that the theory was incomplete, nobody would have guessed that planets such as gas giants could move around in their system. The second shock was that we (the solar system) may not be the dominant structure in the universe.

Prof Didier, who is currently a professor of physics at the University of Cambridges Cavendish Laboratory, plans to continue leading the hunt for Earth-like exoplanets that might support life.

However, current detectors are not sensitive enough to do so.

Im a bit upset by the fact that we have not found an Earth-like planet, so Im helping to set up a new kind of equipment to detect these exoplanets. I would also like to establish a chemical pathway for paving the way for looking for life on other planets. I have teamed up with chemists, geochemists, biochemists and earth scientists to collaborate in this area.

When asked what he feels is the main takeaway from his success, Prof Didier credited his obsessive curiosity that enables him to persevere with his beliefs and ignore the naysayers. He aims to continue probing for the next astronomical breakthrough.

We believed we were the centre of the universe. We believed everything was orbiting around us. We believed the solar system was this then we realised the universe is expanding and so on. Id expect that our next breakthrough will be one where we find life plenty in the universe, where we realise how boring and insignificant we are.

The summit, organised by the National Research Foundation and being held from Jan 17 to Jan 20, features lectures and panel discussions with 21 eminent scientists, including Nobel laureates and winners of the Millennium Technology Prize, awarded by independent foundation Technology Academy Finland. More On This Topic Once in 50,000 years comet may be visible to the naked eye Nasas Moon capsule Orion due to splash down after record-setting voyage

Sports

Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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3 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

Eli LedermanApr 1, 2025, 06:09 PM ET
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USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

Environment

SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

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3 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

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Environment

Stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Published

4 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

The prospectus, filed with the SEC on Tuesday, lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.

JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are serving as lead underwriters, and the company is reportedly aiming for a valuation of up to $5 billion. It will trade under ticker symbol CRCL.

It marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance, including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York.

Circle reported $1.68 billion in revenue and reserve income in 2024, up from $1.45 billion in 2023 and $772 million in 2022. The company reported net income last year of about $156 million., down from $268 million a year earlier.

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A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent pure-play crypto companies to list on a U.S. exchange. Coinbase went public through a direct listing in 2021 and has a market cap of about $44 billion.

Circle will be trying to hit the public markets at a volatile moment for tech stocks, with the Nasdaq having just wrapped up its steepest quarterly drop since 2022. The tech IPO market has been mostly dry for over three years, though there are signs of life. Online lender Klarna, digital health company Hinge Health and ticketing marketplace StubHub have all filed their prospectuses recently. Late last week, artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave held the biggest IPO for a U.S. venture-backed tech company since 2021. But the company scaled back the offering and the stock had a disappointing first two days of trading before rebounding on Tuesday.

Circle is best known as the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation and makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.

The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is enjoying political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector specifically has been ramping up as the industry gains confidence that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins. President Donald Trump has said he hopes lawmakers will send stablecoin legislation to his desk before Congress’s August recess.

Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they become a bigger part of crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.”

The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.

WATCH: Circle CEO on launching first stablecoin in Japan