Brian Schmidt organised an international collaboration, known as the High-z Supernova Search Team, to study the rate of change of the Cosmic Expansion using type Ia supernovae. In 1998, the team reach the conclusion that the cosmic expansion was accelerating, contrary to expectations. This universal acceleration implies the existence of dark energy and was named the top science breakthrough of 1998 by "Science" magazine. In 2011, Brian P. Schmidt shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for such observations which provided evidence for the accelerating Universe.