以表彰他对红外到亚毫米光谱范围天文学的贡献。他探测了在过去恒星形成过程中的星系所放出的宇宙远红外背景，并提出星际物质含有芳香族碳氢分子。通过普朗克太空计划，他处理了星际物质前景的影响，因而显著地提升了我们对宇宙学的认识。
2018年度邵逸夫天文学奖颁予尚−卢 • 普吉 (Jean-Loup Puget)以表彰他对红外到亚毫米光谱范围天文学的贡献。他探测了在过去形成恒星过程中，星系所放出的宇宙远红外背景，并提出星际物质含有芳香族碳氢分子。通过普朗克太空计划，他处理了星际物质前景的影响，因而显著地提升了我们对宇宙学的认识。尚−卢 • 普吉 是法国国家科学研究中心及法国巴黎第十一大学奥赛太空天体物理研究所研究员暨欧洲太空总署普朗克计划高频仪器 (HFI) 首席研究员。
红外至亚毫米光谱范围为观察宇宙打开了一个独特的窗口。这种辐射能够穿透星际介质中的遮掩物质，同时能够探测该等物质的性质。在这个范围内的最长波长，即约1毫米附近，亦能通过观察宇宙微波背景(CMB)，为宇宙处於大约40万年岁时的情况提供讯息。尚−卢 • 普吉 为所有这些研究领域作出了至为关键的贡献。
The infrared-to-millimetre spectral range (1 to 10,000 μm) offers a unique and little explored window on the Universe. Such radiation probes cold, dusty objects such as dense interstellar material, forming stars, and obscured young galaxies. The longest wavelengths, near a few millimetres, also give information on conditions when the Universe was around 400,000 years old, via the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). To detect the faint cosmic signals in this waveband in the presence of very large instrumental, atmospheric and astronomical foreground radiation is challenging. It requires special cryogenic sensors, and optimized telescopes above the Earth’s atmosphere and in space. Jean-Loup Puget has made pivotal contributions to all these aspects, scientific as well as technical.
In the 1970s and early 1980s mysterious spectral emission features between 3 and 12 μm were discovered in Galactic reflection nebulae. Léger & Puget (1984) and independently Allamandola, Tielens and Barker (1985) proposed that these puzzling features come from large “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon” (PAH) molecules, similar to car exhaust, and composed mainly of carbon-hydrogen rings. The PAHs represent a new form of interstellar “dust”. Dust grains and PAHs are heated when they absorb ultraviolet radiation from massive stars. They re-emit this energy as a grey-body thermal continuum in the infrared-submillimetre band and as PAH features. The total intensity of such emission measures cosmic star formation, integrated over the entire history of the Universe. In 1996 Puget and co-workers discovered in data of the NASA COBE satellite a pervasive 100 μm background radiation plausibly from an active star formation phase about 10 billion years ago. Many infrared measurements have since confirmed this discovery and shown that this was the epoch when most of stars in galaxies were formed.
尚−卢．普吉 (Jean-Loup Puget) 1947年於法国索恩卢瓦尔省索恩河畔出生，现为法国国家科学研究中心及法国巴黎第十一大学奥赛 太空天体物理研究所研究员暨欧洲太空总署普朗克计划高频仪器 (HFI) 首席研究员。1966年至1970年期间，他於法国卡尚高等师范学院进修，并於 1973年於该校取得博士学位。毕业后，他加入法国国家科学研究中心担任研究员及研究所所长。1978年至1982年於巴黎天体物理学研究所担任副所长。之后加入奥赛太空天体物理研究所，先后担任副所长 (1990–1997) 及所长 (1998–2005)。他是法国科学院院士。
