Lecture 2018

29 November 2018

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Supermassive Black Holes: The Ultimate Galaxy Killers?

There are over 1 billion galaxies in the Universe, each home to over a billion stars and one central supermassive black hole weighing in at up to a billion times the mass of the Sun. Theoretical astrophysicists think that these supermassive black holes can either heat or remove the cold hydrogen gas within a galaxy needed to form new stars through a huge outburst of energy. In fact, this process has to occur in computer simulated universes to stop galaxies evolving and growing too large. However, the big problem is that astronomers have never actually observed this process happening in our Universe. This Hendrik de Waard Lecture will focus on the research of astrophysicists trying to understand this conflict between observations of galaxies and their supermassive black holes and the current best model of the Universe. In particular Dr. Smethurst will highlight the work being done by the MaNGA survey team who are attempting to map the insides of over 10000 galaxies in order to solve this long standing problem.

Dr Rebecca Smethurst is an astrophysicist researching the effects of supermassive black holes on their host galaxies. She was awarded her PhD by the University of Oxford, where she used the public’s classifications of the shapes of galaxies from the online citizen science project Galaxy Zoo in order to write her thesis on galaxy evolution. She recently completed a research fellowship at the University of Nottingham where she also started presenting videos for the science interest YouTube channels Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Objects. She is now a research fellow at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. In 2014, Rebecca was voted the Audience Winner and Judges Runner-up at the 2014 UK FameLab National Final to find the next best scientific communicator.

This lecture is organised by the Hendrik de Waard Foundation in cooperation with Studium Generale Groningen. The Hendrik de Waard Foundation was founded after the retirement of the late professor of physics Hendrik de Waard in 1987. Annually, the foundation organises a lecture to inform and intrigue the general public about recent developments in science.