Star power: UC Berkeley leaves its mark on Nobel Prize-winning work

HUGE LEAPS IN technology allowed Reinhard Genzel to probe stars zipping around the center of the Milky Way galaxy 25,000 light years away, eventually earning him a portion of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics. But Zoom technology proved too balky to bridge the gap between the physicist, currently in Munich, and his fans in Berkeley.

Nevertheless, Genzel’s voice was patched in to a group of some 175 colleagues and students eager to hear from the newest UC Berkeley Nobel laureate and to learn about the steps along the way to his discovery and that of co-winner Andrea Ghez of UCLA: A black hole sits at the center of our galaxy.