Professor James Binney awarded Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal

Professor James Binney, an Emeritus Fellow and Lecturer in Physics at Merton, has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)’s 2025 Gold Medal for Astronomy in recognition of his lifetime achievements in studying the structure and evolution of galaxies.

James joins a distinguished list of past recipients, including Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and Stephen Hawking. The Gold Medal, the Society’s highest honour, has a history spanning two centuries. Since 1964, it has been awarded annually in two categories: astronomy and geophysics.

Expressing his gratitude, James said: 

‘I am delighted to be honoured by the RAS by the award of this year's Gold Medal. It was my great good fortune to be a theorist at a time of extraordinary progress in astronomy, mostly driven by spectacular advances in instrumentation. And most of what I've achieved has been in collaboration with generations of brilliant students and postdocs – this honour must be shared with them.’

His research has significantly advanced understanding of elliptical galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the Milky Way. His DPhil research at Oxford focused on the cooling of hot gas during galaxy formation, a pivotal concept that remains central to modern galaxy formation models. Following postdoctoral roles, including at Princeton University, he returned to Oxford in 1981.

Over the decades, his work has illuminated the role of black holes in regulating star formation and the chemical evolution of galaxies. His contributions also underpin the standard model of the Milky Way’s mass distribution, a field now evolving with data from the Gaia observatory.