Galactic black holes to yield evolutionary secrets
How do black holes wreak havoc on galaxies? Associate Professor Chris Power at The University of Western Australia's node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) - has more than $600,000 and four years in which to answer that question.
Associate Professor Power - who grew up in County Meath in Ireland and did his PhD at the UK's Durham University - is at UWA as a new Australian Research Council Future Fellow.
"A growing black hole is the most efficient source of power in the Universe, unlocking energy bound in the gas and stars it consumes and unleashing bursts of energetic radiation, huge winds and impressive jets several million light years across," Associate Professor Power said.
"Super-massive black holes appear to be commonplace in galaxies. The goal of my Fellowship is to understand how energetic radiation and powerful jets and winds from a black hole impacts on its surroundings, and to quantify how black holes shape the formation and evolution of galaxies."
To do this he uses cutting edge supercomputer models of the Universe, running through billions of years of simulated galactic history on fast forward.
ICRAR is fast becoming a world-class hub for computational astrophysics and work on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a status that's strengthened by Associate Professor Power's Fellowship. The SKA is expected to be up and running by 2020, but other telescopes such as the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) are already operational in WA's radio-quiet Mid-West.
Our own Milky Way, and neighbouring Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away, have "super-massive" black holes at their centre, tens to hundreds of million times the mass of our Sun, but much smaller than the size of each galaxy. Fortunately the Milky Way's black hole poses no risk to life on Earth.
Associate Professor Power is enjoying the impressive growth of astronomy at UWA and ICRAR, and looks forward to the day the SKA is turned on when, in 24 hours, more information will be processed than will have been processed in all the years we have had the internet.
Provided by University of Western Australia
