American John Mather credited a team of hundreds of scientists and engineers for helping him and George Smoot do the research that won them the 2006 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday.
Mather and Smoot won the prize for their work with a satellite that provided increased support for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
Mather said he had no plans on how to spend his share of the 10-million Swedish kroner ($1.37-million) Nobel Prize money.
”For now I think I will just go get breakfast,” he told Reuters.
He said he had enjoyed working with Smoot and added: ”Our team had 19 scientists and hundreds of engineers.”
”In total there were 1 500 people, so it’s a huge team effort that we’re recognising today,” he said.
”I didn’t expect this, it was a wonderful surprise this morning,” Mather said.
He earlier told a news conference over a telephone link that he felt ”a little sleepy”.
”I can’t say I am completely surprised, people have been saying we should be awarded,” he added.
”Certainly, we will celebrate. I don’t have a plan yet.”
He said he and Smoot did not know at the time the importance of the discovery.
Mather organised the first proposal for the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (Cobe) in 1974 and led the scientific effort through the completion of the mission after the satellite was launched in 1989.
He measured the cosmic microwave background radiation spectrum to the unprecedented precision of a part in 100 000, showing that it matches the spectrum of a perfect black body and must originate in the primordial Big Bang of the universe.
Mather is also senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared telescope that will be the largest in space and will explore the deep space frontier beyond what the Hubble Space Telescope can now observe.
It is scheduled for launch in 2013.
”We will look back toward the beginning of time much farther than Hubble, but also at the formation of stars and planets close to us,” Mather said. – Reuters