New Horizons in Physics prize for Sebastiaan Haffert: ‘Very honoured’
Scientific prize
‘The Oscars of the natural sciences’, is what they are called: the Breakthrough Prizes awarded annually in America by the Breakthrough Foundation. Part of this are the New Horizons prizes for early-stage researchers. Sebastiaan Haffert, researcher at the Observatory, is this year's winner.
Sebastiaan Haffert: 'I am very honoured with this prize. Especially because my research is very applied; I develop techniques for the largest telescopes to search for Earth's siblings. There are many technical challenges, the main one being the twinkling of stars caused by Earth's atmosphere. I use a technique called adaptive optics - a method where we adjust our lenses thousands of times a second - to remove the twinkle from the stars.'
Breakthrough prizes in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics
Breakthrough prizes are awarded annually for the most important breakthroughs in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics. The foundation that awards the prizes was founded by Russian physicist, businessman and billionaire Yuri Milner.
This years winners? You find them here.
'Thanks to AI we can do things that were not possible before'
Haffert shares the prize in astronomy with Rebecca Jensen-Clem and Maaike van Kooten. They share a cash prize of $100,000. Haffert develops new sensors, algorithms and post-processing algorithms for adaptive optical instruments. 'Our field is advancing rapidly thanks to the increase in computing power over the past decade, which allows us to use artificial intelligence to optimally control our instruments. We can now do things that were not possible before.'
And there is no end in sight. 'As a staff member of the Leiden Observatory, I am now, together with a large team of international collaborators, applying this knowledge so that we can search for life on other planets. I am honoured that the work I have done so far has been awarded the New Horizons in Physics prize, but I think the most interesting discoveries are still to come.'