Abstract: The historical relationship between astrophysics and the Nobel Prize in Physics is discussed. The 2006 Prize was the 8th to be awarded for astrophysics, the 11th for astrophysics and was won by the 14th and 15th astrophysicists. It was awarded for the discovery of the blackbody spectrum and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which strongly supports the big bang theory of cosmology. Other great achievements in recent years in this field are also discussed.