In other words, journals try to predict the future (impact) while the Nobel committee looks at the past (impact). More specifically, journals like significant a

In other words, journals try to predict the future (impact) while the Nobel committee looks at the past (impact). More specifically, journals like significant advances in known fields (eg, doubling the efficiency of solar panels), while the Nobel committee likes research that opens up a new field (eg, looking for exo planets). In that light, maybe it's more surprising to see a Nobel-awarded piece of research was published in Nature than to see it was rejected by Nature.