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Michel Mayor (born 12 January 1942) is a professor at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Geneva.
Together with Didier Queloz in 1995 he discovered the first extrasolar planet, 51 Pegasi B, orbiting a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi.
After studying Physics at the University of Lausanne in 1971 Mayor achieved his doctorate in astronomy at the Geneva Observatory. Among other places, he worked at the observatory at Cambridge, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile and an observatory at Hawaii.
By 1998 he had made more than 200 scientific publications. From 1989 to 1992 he was involved with the scientific research at ESO, from 1988 until 1991 on the study of galactic structure with the International Astronomical Union and from 1990 until 1993 the Swiss society for astrophysics and astronomy.
Since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b Michel Mayor and his research team were occupied with the discovery of many further extrasolar planets.
In August 1998 he was awarded the Swiss Marcel Benoist Prize in recognition of his work and its significance for human life. As of 2003 he was a member of the board of trustees. In 2000 he was awarded the Balzan Prize. In 2004 he was awarded the Einstein Medal.
In 2003, his latest planet searching instrument, High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, came online.
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