Contents
Andrea M. Ghez
Tracking stars to establish the presence of a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s centre.
Fast-moving central stars · A short-period orbit
- Born
- 16 June 1965
- Birthplace
- New York City, United States
More people
Andrea M. Ghez
Andrea Ghez is an American astrophysicist whose team used high-resolution observations of stellar orbits to investigate the object at our galaxy’s centre. She shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Early life
Chicago childhood
Grew up in Chicago, inspired by the Apollo Moon landings and encouraged to explore science.
Physics training
Graduated from MIT in 1987 and completed her Caltech doctorate in 1992.
Career
- 1990s
Galactic-centre research
Began using powerful infrared observations to study stars near the Milky Way’s centre.
- 2000s
Sharper observations
Developed the use of adaptive optics to follow stellar motions through atmospheric distortion.
- 2010s–2020s
Research leadership
Continued leading UCLA work on stellar orbits and the central black hole.
Contributions
Fast-moving central stars
Published evidence that rapid stellar motions required an enormous concentrated mass.
A short-period orbit
Her team reported a star circling the central object in about eleven and a half years.
Nobel Prize in Physics
Shared the award with Reinhard Genzel and Roger Penrose.
Beyond work
Science for young readers
Co-wrote You Can Be a Woman Astronomer with Judith Love Cohen.
Swimming
Has participated in UCLA’s Masters Swim Club alongside her research career.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Institutional source ↗Photo: BorderlineRebel. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
