FOR RELEASE: 3:00 pm (EDT) October 3, 2006


Donna Weaver
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
(Phone: 410-338-4493; )

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC06-49

JWST PROJECT SCIENTIST WINS NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS

John C. Mather, a senior astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and
senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), has won the
2006 Nobel Physics Prize.


Mather shares the prize with George F. Smoot, a professor of physics at the University
of California at Berkeley, for work that helped solidify the Big Bang theory for the origin
of the universe. Mather and Smoot were members of a science team that used NASA’s
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite to measure the diffuse microwave
background radiation, which is considered a relic of the Big Bang.


To see and read more about Dr. Mather and the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics on the Web, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/49
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/...ze_mather.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/p...006/press.html


The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations.
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Astronomy, Inc., Washington.