LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2025: Professor Jonathan Tennyson, Chair and co-founder of Blue Skies Space, has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s illustrious Gold Medal for 2025.
Professor Tennyson, an academic at University College London, follows in the footsteps of Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, Stephen Hawking and Jocelyn Bell Burnell in receiving the Society’s highest honour, which dates back 200 years. Each year the RAS recognises significant achievement in the fields of astronomy and geophysics through a number of awards, medals and prizes, encompassing different types of talent from research to education and outreach.
Professor Tennyson was honoured for a lifetime of ground-breaking research in molecular physics, as well as for his pioneering leadership of the ExoMol project, which aims to provide molecular line lists for exoplanets and other worlds with hot atmospheres. These line lists are essential in the measurements and interpretations of measured spectra, and as a result, the ExoMol project is widely considered a standard method across the community. It has been fundamental to our understanding of the chemistry and dynamics of exoplanetary and solar system atmospheres.
Professor Tennyson’s theoretical work on water molecules also led to the first detection of water in sunspots and proved that water could survive in stars as hot as our Sun. He is on several editorial boards for scientific journals, including being the Editor-in-Chief of the RAS Journal of Techniques and Instruments, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Professor Tennyson said he was “deeply honoured” to receive a Gold Medal from the RAS. He added: “This award is a recognition of the continuing importance of extensive and high quality laboratory data in supporting cutting edge astronomical research, and the important driver astronomy plays in the development of new methods in atomic and molecular physics.”
English mathematician Charles Babbage and German astronomer Johann Franz Encke were jointly handed the first RAS Gold Medal just over 200 years ago, in 1824. Since 1964 two have been awarded each year: one for astronomy, and one for geophysics. The medal features an image of the 40-foot telescope constructed by Sir William Herschel, who was the first president of the RAS.
The award announcements were made at the A&G Highlights Meeting held on Friday 10 January 2025. On behalf of the team at Blue Skies Space, congratulations to Professor Tennyson for this well-deserved recognition.