The RAS is pleased to announce the 2013 winners of its awards, medals and prizes. The President of the society, Prof. David Southwood, made the announcement at the Ordinary Meeting of the society held on Friday 11 January 2013. The winners will be invited to collect their awards at the annual RAS National Astronomy Meeting.

The Gold Medal of the RASEach year the RAS recognises significant achievement in the fields of astronomy and geophysics through these awards. The Society's highest honour is its Gold Medal, which is awarded for lifetime achievement. Past winners include Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, Arthur Eddington and Stephen Hawking. Since 1964 two have been awarded each year: one for astronomy, and one for geophysics.

This year's winner of the Gold Medal in astronomy is Prof. Roger Blandford, for his "varied and inspirational contributions to theoretical astrophysics, as well as his service to the astrophysics research community at an international level".

The 2013 winner of the Gold Medal in geophysics is Prof. Chris Chapman, for his "numerous seminal contributions to theoretical, computational and interpretational methods of seismology".

The Society also awards a number of other medals and prizes; the winners are listed below. Awards are designated 'A' for the fields of astronomy (including astrophysics, cosmology etc.) and 'G' for the fields of geophysics (including solar physics, planetary science, solar-terrestrial physics etc.); some are awarded in both fields. For more information on the awards and the achievements of the winners, follow the links or see our full press release.

List of winners

Awards, medals and prizes:

Gold Medal

Prof. Roger Blandford (A)

Prof. Chris Chapman (G)

Eddington Medal (A)

Prof. James Binney

Price Medal (G)

Prof. Kathryn Whaler

Herschel Medal (A)

Prof. Michael Kramer

Jackson-Gwilt Medal (A)

Prof. Vikram Dhillon

Chapman Medal (G)

Prof. Stephen Milan

Fowler Prize

Dr Mark Swinbank (A)

Dr Iain Hannah (G)

Winton Capital Award

Dr Baojiu Li (A)

Dr Katherine Joy (G)

Group Achievement Award

The SAURON Team (A)

UK MHD Consortium (G)

RAS Service Award

Prof. Mike Hapgood

Patrick Moore Medal

Dr Bernie Tedd

Honorary Fellowship of the RAS

Prof. Francoise Combes (A)

Prof. Sandra Faber (A)

Prof. Alik Ismail-Zadeh (G)

Prof. George Miley (A)

'Named' lectures to be delivered at a meeting of the Society:

George Darwin Lecture (A)

Prof. Eline Tolstoy

Harold Jeffreys Lecture (G)

Prof. Bob White

James Dungey Lecture (G)

Prof. Peter Cargill