[Step 3] The Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded for ‘new horizons in space observation’… Solo award after 34 years

Contributing to neutrino observation research... Born in Belgium and active in the United States

“Open a new way to investigate hitherto unknown cosmic phenomena.”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lim Hwa-seop = The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Francis Haljeon (82), a Belgian-born American physicist who contributed greatly to neutrino observation research.

He was unusually named as the sole winner.

This is the first time in 34 years that the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded alone since Georges Scharpak (1992), a Polish-born French physicist who was recognized for his invention of the multiline proportional detector.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Nobel Committee announced on the 6th (local time) that it decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of "the decisive contribution to the IceCube neutrino observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin."

The total prize money for this year's Physics Prize is 12 million Swedish krona (1.61 billion won), and as the sole winner, Haljeon was recognized with a full share of the prize money.

Haljeon is the head of research at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica.

This observatory, which has been in operation since 2010, is the world's largest neutrino detection device.

Haljeon is currently serving as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Haljeon led an international team of researchers and engineers that gave us fantastic observation equipment,” said Mark Pearce, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics. “His tenacity and scientific vision paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.”

The committee explains that the observation of ultra-high energy neutrinos flying from space has opened a way to identify hitherto unknown cosmic phenomena.

This year's Nobel Prize winners were announced for the Physiology and Medicine Prize on the 5th and the Physics Prize on the 6th, while the Chemistry Prize was announced on the 7th, the Literature Prize on the 8th, the Peace Prize on the 9th, and the Economics Prize on the 12th.