American duo wins Nobel physics prize

STOCKHOLM - Americans John Mather and George Smoot have won the 2006 Nobel prize for physics for their work with a satellite which provided increased support for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the 10 million Swedish crown (NZ$2.07m) prize, said the two men were instrumental in the success of the COBE satellite programme launched by Nasa in 1989.

Measurements by the satellite offered insights into the age of the universe, galaxies and stars by calculating the temperature of cosmic microwave background radiation, a relic of the universe's earliest phase, the Academy said.

Mather, of the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, coordinated the entire COBE satellite programme while Smoot, of the University of California, Berkeley, had the main responsibility for measuring small temperature variations in the radiation.

- REUTERS