In a ceremony held in Oslo, Norway, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awarded the 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics to Argentine scientist Amina Helmi, making her the first Argentine ever to receive this prestigious honor, often described as the Nobel of Astrophysics. The announcement was made in June, with the official award ceremony taking place during the Kavli Prize Week.
Helmi, who was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, on October 6, 1970, shared the prize with astronomers Vasily Belokurov (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) and Rodrigo Ibata (University of Strasbourg, France). Together, they were recognized for their research revealing the 'fossil evidence of the mergers that built the Milky Way', a breakthrough that changed our view of galaxy formation.
A pioneering discovery: Helmi streams and Gaia-Enceladus
The award committee highlighted Helmi's doctoral work from 1999, when she identified a group of stars near the Sun with unusual movements. These stars are remnants of a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed by the Milky Way, now known as the 'Helmi streams'. This finding laid the foundation for 'galactic archaeology' — a technique combining stellar trajectories, ages, and chemical compositions (termed chemodynamics) to reconstruct our galaxy's history.
In 2018, using data from the Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), Helmi and her team discovered the remnants of the dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus, which was consumed by the Milky Way about 10 billion years ago. This cosmic collision shaped the galactic halo and disturbed the disk, leaving a lasting imprint on the galaxy's structure.
Words from the committee
“The Kavli Prize laureates have used the remains of devoured galaxies to show that our galaxy is the survivor of enormous cosmic collisions billions of years ago,” said Per Barth Lilje, chair of the Kavli Astrophysics Committee.
“It gives us a revolutionary insight into how our universe forms.”
Beyond her work on the Milky Way, Helmi also investigates dark matter, one of the great mysteries of cosmology.
A career rooted in public education
Amina Helmi studied Astronomy at the Faculty of Astronomical and Geophysical Sciences of the National University of La Plata (UNLP), where she earned her master's degree in 1994 with a mark of 9.94 out of 10. She then moved to the Netherlands, earning her PhD from Leiden University and, since 1996, has been based at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute of the University of Groningen.
After completing her doctorate, she returned to Argentina for a postdoctoral stage at the UNLP and also worked at the Buenos Aires Planetarium. Throughout her career, she has garnered other accolades, including the Spinoza Prize (2019) and the Brouwer Award (2021).
“Since there is no Nobel Prize in Astrophysics, this is the highest one can achieve,” said an emotional Helmi.
The Kavli Prize: Nobel for underrepresented fields
The Kavli Prize is awarded every two years by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, in partnership with the Kavli Foundation and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. It recognizes outstanding contributions in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience — fields not covered by the traditional Nobels. Each prize includes a gold medal and a cash award of one million US dollars, shared among winners in each category. The ceremony takes place in Oslo as part of the Kavli Prize Week.
This achievement is a source of immense pride for Argentine science and especially for its public university system, which educated one of the brightest minds in astrophysics.