Donald Lynden-Bell

In 1969, he published a highly influential paper proposing that quasars are powered by massive black holes at the centers of galaxies. This theory laid the foundation for our modern understanding that supermassive black holes, like Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way, exist in essentially all large galaxies.

He spent the majority of his esteemed career as a professor at the University of Cambridge, specifically working at the Institute of Astronomy. He was also a founding member of the Royal Astronomical Society's observational astronomy group.

Yes, in 2008, Donald Lynden-Bell was a co-recipient of the inaugural Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. He shared the award with Maarten Schmidt for their groundbreaking work in understanding the nature of quasars.

Along with his collaborators in 1976, Lynden-Bell published a model explaining the Magellanic Stream, a massive filament of neutral hydrogen gas trailing the Magellanic Clouds. His mathematical models helped explain the gravitational dynamics of these neighboring galaxies interacting with the Milky Way.