Journal Akadeemia awarded astronomer Laurits Leedjärv with a Golden Prize

Astronomer Laurits Leedjärv was awarded the Golden Prize 2024 by the journal Akadeemia for his article "Elu parimas võimalikus maailmas“ (Life in the best possible world).

The journal hands out prizes every year in four categories: universalia, socialia, humaniora, and naturalia. Leedjärv was awarded the naturalia prize.

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"We live in an age of discovery. Every year, about 200-300 new worlds are found in space, located tens or hundreds of light-years away from us. However, most of the approximately 5,800 known exoplanets are very different from our Earth. Only about four percent of them are similar in size to Earth, but even these may have conditions (temperature, atmosphere presence and composition, surface structure, etc.) that are very different from ours. As far as we know, we can say that we live in the best possible world. Perhaps, someday in the distant future, this knowledge will change," summarized Leedjärv, capturing the essence of the article.

Akadeemia is organizing a prize seminar on February 19 at 5 PM at the Estonian Writers’ Union's Tartu House (Vanemuise 19, Tartu) where the laureates of each field will talk about the topic of their article. The entrance to the seminar is free.

Leedjärv has also won the same prize for his 2017 article "Inimsõbralik universum" (People-friendly Universe) and in 2019 for the article "Üksildane maa" (Lonely Earth).

More Information:

Laurits Leedjärv, Associate Professor in Binary Start, Tartu Observatory of University of Tartu, laurits.leedjarv@ut.ee.