Paola Pinilla, Colombian Oscar winner in science

Colombian physicist Paola Pinilla has just been announced as one of the winners of the Breakthrough Prize, which is like the “Oscars” of science. Pinella won the New Frontiers in Physics category, along with researchers Laura M. Perez, Nienke van der Marel, and Till Bernstiel, for their work “Predicting, detecting, and modeling dust traps in young stellar disks.” Solve an old problem in Planet formation“, he indicated the award through a press release.

In a statement from University College London (UCL), Pinella expressed his feeling of great pride in receiving this award with my wonderful colleagues. “This award reflects the tremendous efforts of the scientific community working to understand planetary formation.”

“I am extremely grateful to the many mentors I have had throughout my career, because they have inspired me and believed in me,” she said. (You can also read: “It’s not of extraterrestrial origin, but we don’t know what it is”: NASA on UFOs)

When a star forms, it acquires a disk, the protoplanetary disk, which is rich in gas and very small dust, about the thickness of a hair, Pinilla told El Espectador. There the formation of planets occurs.

UCL explained that dust traps are regions of dynamic rings of gas and dust around stars where dust particles can collect or clump together long enough to form the rocky core of a planet.

Although laboratory models suggested that the pressure “could cause the star to consume all of this dust,” telescopes showed something different. “It suggested that the discs were not as homogeneous as we thought, but that there were areas within them where dust was concentrated. Pinilla explained to this newspaper that when resorting to these areas, molecules collide and grow as they please.

All Breakthrough Prize winners were announced on Thursday, September 14. The award is awarded in the areas of life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics, and each year, up to three New Horizons Prizes in Physics, up to three New Horizons Prizes in Mathematics and up to three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Investigator Prizes are awarded. Who are starting their careers.

The winners of each award receive $3 million and attend a ceremony to present their awards. In this year’s edition, three awards were presented in the Life Sciences category, one in fundamental physics and the other in mathematics.

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