Nobel Prize History
The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in the scientific world. It was created according to Mr. Alfred Nobel’s will to give a prize “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A sixth prize would be later on created for economic sciences by the Swedish central bank.
The decision of who to attribute the prize to belongs to multiple Swedish academic institutions.
Legacy Concerns
The decision to create the Nobel Prize came to Alfred Nobel after he read his own obituary, following a mistake by a French newspaper that misunderstood the news of his brother’s death. Titled “The Merchant of Death Is Dead”, the French article hammered Nobel for his invention of smokeless explosives, of which dynamite was the most famous one.
His inventions were very influential in shaping modern warfare, and Nobel purchased a massive iron and steel mill to turn it into a major armaments manufacturer. As he was first a chemist, engineer, and inventor, Nobel realized that he did not want his legacy to be one of a man remembered to have made a fortune over war and the death of others.
Nobel Prize
These days, Nobel’s Fortune is stored in a fund invested to generate income to finance the Nobel Foundation and the gold-plated green gold medal, diploma, and monetary award of 11 million SEK (around $1M) attributed to the winners.
Source: Britannica
Often, the Nobel Prize money is divided between several winners, especially in scientific fields where it is common for 2 or 3 leading figures to contribute together or in parallel to a groundbreaking discovery.
Over the years, the Nobel Prize became THE scientific prize, trying to strike a balance between theoretical and very practical discoveries. It has rewarded achievements that built the foundations of the modern world like radioactivity, antibiotics, X-rays, or PCR, as well as fundamental science like the power source of the sun, the electron charge, atomic structure, or superfluidity.
Looking Toward the Stars
Since the dawn of time, humanity has wondered what to think about the pale light dots illuminating the night sky. Some of the earliest records of advanced calculations have been dedicated to astrology, trying to predict the movement of celestial bodies with humankind’s limited understanding of the time.
Later on, we started to understand our place in the universe as one small planet orbiting one single, somewhat unremarkable star among hundreds of billions in our galaxy. Later on, we realized that even our galaxy is only one among several billion other galaxies (or maybe even an infinity).
Still, the scientific age has not changed our attitude toward the heavens much. The first telescopes led astronomers to think they saw some mountains and seas on the surface of the Moon and canals on the surface of Mars.
This stimulated the imagination of generations of science-fiction writers, theorizing about what the surface of these distant worlds could have to reveal.
In recent years, the discovery and increasingly precise measurement of distant stars have yielded a new series of discoveries: an abundance of exoplanets or planets orbiting a different star than the Sun.
In 2019, the Nobel Prize in Physics rewarded Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star” and James Peebles for a theoretical framework that is “the foundation of our modern understanding of the universe’s history, from the Big Bang to the present day.”
Source: Nobel Prize
From The Big Bang To The Big Picture
James Peebles started working in the 1960s on cosmology and the origin of the Universe itself. His first book, Physical Cosmology (1971), inspired a whole new generation of physicists to look at the question through the lenses of observations and measurements instead of theories. This was a true revolution in approach, breaking away from, quite literally, millennia of methodology in astronomy.
This was in addition to the discovery in the 1920s that the Universe was not a fixed, unchanging architecture but that galaxies were moving away from each other. The universe is actually growing, and its past version was radically different from the present. And so will its future. The idea of an initial burst of creation, the so-called Big Bang, was born.
It was the work of James Peebles that built the foundations explaining the background radiation of the Universe or the leftover of that initial “explosion” at the origin of time. He understood that this radiation background could contain information about how much matter was created at that origin point of the Universe.
Source: Nobel Prize
Following the framework built by Peebles, scientists discovered that small initial variations were what led to the subsequent formations of stars and galaxies, creating the Universe we know instead of a uniform soup of primordial particles.
This would later on see John Mather and George Smoot measure the very first rays of light in the Universe, winning them the Nobel Prize in 2006.
Still, some secrets are yet to be unveiled. Notably, according to the calculation from the cosmic radiation, most of the Universe seems to be made up of still unidentified dark matter and dark energy, with the “normal” matter making up only 5% of the Universe.
The First Exoplanet Among Many
It is maybe the mark of truly groundbreaking discovery that when they are announced, the general reaction by the scientific community is skepticism. This was the reaction to the announcement by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz in 1995 that they had measured for the first time a planet orbiting a star like the Sun.
They had discovered a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi b, a star 50 light years from Earth.
Source: Nobel Prize
The planet was extremely close to its star, only 8 million kilometers away and orbiting in only 4 days, compared to Earth’s 150 million kilometers. Due to this extreme proximity, the exoplanet would heat up to 1,000°C. The planet was deemed to be a gaseous giant similar to Jupiter in our solar system.
Until then, astronomers were certain that gas giants could only form and survive far away from their star, with for example Jupiter taking 12 years to orbit around the Sun. Hence the initial skepticism, which was soon alleviated by confirmation from other astronomers.
The Hunt For Exoplanets
The discovery of a planet around 51 Pegasi b, a Sun-like star nearby, opened the way to a chase for exoplanets.
They are, however, difficult to spot, as planets are much less bright than stars. Due to their proximity to stars, they are usually impossible to observe directly with a telescope, the way we cannot look directly at a light bulb without being blinded.
Instead, the method is to detect if the gravity of the planet affects the position of the star in space. But of course, as the planet is much smaller, the star moves only very little, requiring very precise measurements.
To manage the most precise measurement, spectrographs measuring thousands of individual light frequencies are used.
Source: Nobel Prize
Michel Mayor had already created his first spectrograph in 1977, but its resolution was still too low for the detection of exoplanets.
Meanwhile, Didier Queloz, a PhD student, was asked to develop more precise spectrograph methods. He used optical fibers (a technology winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics) and better image sensors to obtain undistorted images. The increased light sensitivity combined with more powerful computers allowed them to develop custom software for processing the image out of the telescope.
The new system had a sensitivity to star velocity change of 10–15 m/s, in the range of Jupiter 12m/s. This made the discovery of the first exoplanet just a matter of time, and it was finally published in 1995.
A Crowded Galaxy
Since the discovery of the first exoplanet, more than 5,000 others have been found, in part thanks to the same technique developed by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz.
Another method developed since is transit photometry. The idea is to measure the shadow a planet causes when passing in front of its star.
Source: Nobel Prize
This number of 5,000 planets is especially high when considering our method only allows for detection from nearby stars.
Most of the galaxy has not been searched yet, and it seems that there are as many planets as there are stars in the galaxy or approximately 100-400 billion in the Milky Way alone.
Source: Nobel Prize
We now found plenty of Earth-like planets, not just Jupiter-like planets, in large part thanks to the space telescope Kepler /K2 dedicated to the search for exoplanets which found half of the currently known exoplanets.
Source: NASA
Investing Into Space
The discovery of the Big Bang and exoplanets does not have a direct immediate impact on our lives on Earth. But it is radically changing our view of the Universe.
Most recently, our culture is rightfully concerned with the risks associated with resource scarcity and Earth’s changing climate.
But a lesson from a massive Universe and hundreds of billions of exoplanets in our galaxy is that while we should solve problems on Earth, we should also look upward to find almost infinite space & resources for human expansion.
If you want to learn more about how this could work, you can read our articles about the future space-based economy or the future Martian economy.
Currently, most of the space-based economy is still looking back to Earth, providing precious services like telecommunication, military intelligence, imagery, etc.
You can invest in space-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in picking specific pharmaceutical companies, you can also look into biotech ETFs like the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX) or the VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF (JEDI), which will provide a more diversified exposure to capitalize on the growing space economy.
Source: VanEck
Space Companies
1. Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is one of the most serious contenders in the reusable rocket market. First proven possible by SpaceX, reusable rockets are the workhorse carrying the entire new space economy, as they dramatically cut costs of launching equipment into orbit and space.
Rocket Lab has initially focused on small rockets, with the Electron launch system (320 kg of payload), which is progressively being turned into a partially reusable rocket. So far, Electron has deployed 177 satellites in 44 launches.
Later on, Rocket Lab is looking at creating a medium-size reusable rocket, the Neutron, comparable to Falcon 9 (8,000 kg to LEO in fully reusable mode, 1,500 kg to Mars or Venus). The Neutron will be powered by a methane-burning rocket engine (like Starship), which seems to become the trend for the next generation of rockets.
The company is remarkable for its fully vertically integrated satellite manufacturing process, allowing it to optimize costs and design speed.
This resulted in multiple contracts with NASA & the US government, including a $515M military satellite contract. and a civilian $143m contract for Globalstar.
Rocket Lab is also a major manufacturer of solar panels for satellites after its 2022 acquisitions of SolAero Technologies, with 1000+ satellites powered by these panels, and 4MW solar cells manufactured in total.
Source: Rocket Lab
For now, its launch system is reliant on outside suppliers, but a series of strategic acquisitions should change that, replicating in the launch system the vertical integration already achieved in satellite design and manufacturing.
The company is also looking at the possibility of a telecom LEO constellation to generate recurring revenues. It is also contributing to research for in-space manufacturing with Varda Space Industries and orbital debris inspection.
While SpaceX had Elon Musk’s business talent to develop its technology from scratch, Rocket Lab used a mix of R&D and acquisitions to vertically integrate the technology required. This has proven very successful in satellite manufacturing, and they are now looking to replicate this strategy for reusable rockets.
Considering the existing cash flow from satellite production & the Electron successes, Rocket Lab is a good candidate to catch up with SpaceX’s head start.
2. Planet Labs
Looking into space also encourages us to look back to Earth for the bigger picture. This is precisely the business of Planet Labs, with its Planet Insights platform.
The company sells high-resolution images of Earth, thanks to daily global scanning with its satellites, and then sells the data to customers in agriculture, defense, energy, finance, etc.
Source: Planet Labs
The company produces and pays to send into orbit multispectral satellites, taking images of the Earth in visible light, infrared, UV, etc.
This data can, after being collected once at a fixed cost, be sold to multiple customers for any purpose, for example:
- Forecasting water supply to a hydropower company (Electrobras)
- Analyzing forest coverage for a government agency (Sabah Forestry)
- Provide intelligence and reconnaissance data (Pentagon)
- Precision agriculture, measuring in real-time crop growth, water stress, etc. (Brazil)
Source: Planet Labs
Currently, the company is making almost half of its income from defense and intelligence and 30% from civil government. So the private sector is still only getting started to use satellite data more extensively, leaving a large space for the company to grow, with customer base and revenues growing consistently 15% year-to-year.