Photo taken on Oct. 6, 2020 shows the announcement of the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Wei Xuechao/Xinhua)

"The discoveries of this year's laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research."

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 6 -- Three scientists shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about the black hole, one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced on Tuesday.

The prize has been awarded with one half to Roger Penrose and the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez.

"Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the center of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation," said a press release from the academy.

"The discoveries of this year's laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their inner structure, but also questions about how to test our theory of gravity under the extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole," David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, was quoted by the release as saying.