Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez received a BS in physics from MIT in 1987. She is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California in Los Angeles. Photo credit: Christopher Dibble
Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez ’87 was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, announced today by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. She shares half of the award with Reinhard Genzel, “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object in the center of our galaxy”. The other half of the award went to Roger Penrose, “for discovering that black hole Education is a robust prediction of general relativity. ”
Ghez received a BS in physics from WITH In 1987 she started majoring in mathematics before switching to physics. She received her PhD from Caltech in 1992 and is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
She is known for pioneering the use of high spatial resolution imaging techniques to study star-forming regions and the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A * at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. In particular, she studies the kinematics or interactions between stars in order to characterize the extremely dynamic region in the center of the galaxy.
Ghez shares half of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics with Genzel, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of California at Berkeley. Ghez and Genzel each lead a team of astronomers who have focused on imaging the brightest stars in the center of the Milky Way with increasing precision. The two groups have used some of the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world to peer through many light years of interstellar gas and dust and focus on the orbits of the stars in the center of the galaxy.
Their independent measurements have revealed an incredibly massive, invisible object that appears to be pulling on the stars and hurling them around the center of the galaxy at tremendous speeds.
According to today’s announcement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, your work has given us “the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way”.
“What Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel did was one of the coolest things ever – to reveal stars in the center of our galaxy that orbit a black hole too small to be seen with a telescope,” says Peter Fisher, professor and Head of the Department of Physics at MIT. “I’ve always shown it [their video visualizing this process] When I was teaching relativity it was a great way to think about a black hole, and it shows the incredible patience it takes to do great science. “
“Indeed, we now understand that these giants live at the center of most galaxies,” adds Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and professor of astrophysics at Curtis and Kathleen Marble. “Andrea has been an impressive scientist and educator and a role model for women and girls throughout her career. And now, as a Nobel Prize winner, her groundbreaking science and history are sure to go further, inspiring a generation of young women to pursue careers in science. ”
Penrose, who will receive the second half of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Oxford University. Penrose is known for using ingenious mathematical models to prove that black holes are a direct result of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein himself did not believe that there could be black holes. Ten years after Einstein’s death in January 1965, Penrose proved the existence of black holes, describing them as objects that hide a gravitational singularity – a general relativity concept in which all known laws of nature cease to exist.
In the academy’s announcement, David Haviland, chairman of the Nobel Committee on Physics, said: “The discoveries made by this year’s award winners have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. However, these exotic objects still raise many questions that ask for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their internal structure, but also questions how we can test our theory of gravity under extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole. ”
“I hope I can get other young women excited about the field,” said Ghez at the press conference. “It is an area that has so many joys and if you are into science there is so much you can do.”
Ghez is the 38th MIT graduate to win a Nobel Prize and the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
MIT Alumna and two others were honored for discoveries in black hole physics.
