The 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics is awarded to Vasily Belokurov, Amina Helmi and Rodrigo Ibata, “for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion”.
Belokurov is at the UK’s University of Cambridge; Helmi is at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the Netherlands’ University of Groningen; and Ibata is at France’s University of Strasbourg.
This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features an interview with Helmi and Per Barth Lilje, who is chair of the Kavli Astrophysics Prize committee and is based at Norway’s University of Oslo.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we explore the history of the Milky Way and why the work of the Kavli laureates provides crucial evidence that our galaxy was formed by the merger of smaller dwarf galaxies. We talk about what hierarchical accretion tells us about dark matter and the Standard Model of cosmology – and we look forward to the future of the Milky Way.
- Belokurov, Helmi and Ibata share the $1m prize money equally. The prize will be awarded in Oslo in September
This podcast is sponsored by The Kavli Prize.
