The original project began because we know the universe is expanding. Everybody had assumed that gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe and everything would come to a halt and collapse. The big surprise was it was actually speeding up.

Schmidt. The advertisement showed his passion for the study of the cosmos at even a very young age. Saul Perlmutter (born September 22 1959) is an American astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California Berkeley.

Schmidt and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.