Image by alan9187 from Pixabay 

As many girls do, she dreamed about being a ballerina. However, early she realized that she was more passionate about science. Indeed, she wanted to be the first astronaut woman.

You may be wondering whom I am talking about. I am narrating Andrea Ghez’s life, one of the Nobel Prize winners in physics 2020. The award was shared with other two scientists.

As matter of fact. The Nobel Prize is given “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”. As if that is not enough. It is one of the most prestigious awards in science.

Ghez’s parents come from European immigrants’ families who installed in the U.S. When Ghez was a teenager she first majored in mathematics. She then changed to physics, and later obtained a Bachelor of Science in physics.

Do you know that Andrea Ghez was told that she could not do what she wanted to do? That she could not enrol the schools where she dreamed to study. And you know what? People was so wrong. Indeed, she could, and she did it awesomely.

Ghez also studied a PhD in physics. She was a hard worker and a very talented student. For instance, when she was still a PhD student, she discovered that “most of stars in the universe were born with a companion”, according to a report by The My Hero Project. What it means is that most of solar systems in the universe have two suns instead of one. Can you believe it?

Later in her career black holes caught her attention. Let me walk you through. A black hole is a region in the space where there is a colossal mass packed in a relatively tiny space. They can be as massive as many million times our Sun’s mass.

And I am not stopping here. Black holes are so dense that when light comes into them it will never escape. It means that black holes become invisible to our eyes. But here comes the most amazing part. Although the invisibility of black holes, Ghez was able to detect one of them.

You might think to yourself, if black holes are invisible to the human eye, how can scientists be sure they exist? Well, it is known that supermassive black holes generate Herculean gravity, which accelerates the stars around them. But wait, there is more. Stars also follow distinct trajectories when they orbit near black holes. And there is a catch here. Telescopes can detect the light emitted from these stars, which helps scientists to recognize a star that is near to a black hole. Bingo!

Interestingly, Ghez’s work is not only hunting black holes. She is also passionate about teaching and she finds it so gratifying. She likes to teach undergraduate courses and to teach that women can develop scientific research.

As a scientist Ghez also participates in astrophysics conferences, analyzes computer data, publishes her results, and writes proposal to get funds for her research. She is also a mother of two.

You must be wondering. How did Ghez win the Nobel Prize? She and her team watched a complete orbit of a star, called S0-2, moving near to the center of our galaxy. And the kind of trajectory that the star followed indicated that was near to a black hole.

This is how Ghez realized that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. There is another catch here. One the one hand, this result confirms one of the most important theories in physics, the General Relativity theory by Einstein. On the other hand, Ghez helped to develop a novel technology that made possible to measure the star’s trajectory.

Thus, Ghez provided one of the most convincing evidence that black holes exist. And therefore, she was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in physics 2020.

Do you know what is more exciting about the Ghez’s job? As a scientist she does not only do her research, but she travels around the world to attend astrophysics conferences, and to give lectures. She also frequently travels to Hawaii at the W.M. Keck Observatory where is located the telescopes she and her team used.

What an amazing lifestyle, isn’t it? Do not forget there are many amazing women out there making huge contributions to humanity. And they, just like you, also had youthful dreams.

References

UCLA, Newsroom, 2019. 

The MY HERO Project, 2016.