Overview
- Méndez Delgado, who was named the winner Thursday, was honored for work on the physics and chemistry of ionized nebulae.
- The prize will be presented on July 14 at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu by Spain’s royal family.
- He created the DEep Spectra of Ionized REgions Database, which pools high-quality spectra so researchers can measure very faint emission lines with better confidence.
- His team reported evidence in Nature that helps explain the long-standing abundance discrepancy, a mismatch between methods for estimating heavy elements in nebulae.
- He is a UNAM investigator trained through public schools and programs in Spain and Germany, a trajectory that highlights Mexican public education’s contribution to international astronomy.