The American Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced the winners of the 2024 Breakthrough Prizes, which honour researchers for significant scientific discoveries. In addition to the main prizes in the fields of fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics, the “New Horizons” prizes will also be awarded to six up-and-coming young scientists. One of these coveted prizes will be awarded to LMU astrophysicist Til Birnstiel, together with Laura M. Pérez (Universidad de Chile), Paola Pinilla (University College London) and Nienke van der Marel (Leiden Observatory), for “predicting, discovering and modelling dust traps in young circumstellar disks that solve a long-standing problem of planet formation.”
Birnstiel and his team study the formation of planets and the structure and evolution of so-called protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets. “More specifically, I am concerned with the dynamics of solid particles in these disks and how they grow into planets,” explains the physicist.