[Astronomy] Taiwanese-American Astronomer Takes Part in Discovering Biggest Black Holes Yet

[Astronomy] Taiwanese-American Astronomer Takes Part in Discovering Biggest Black Holes Yet (Chinese Version)

CNA (2011/12/05) The U.S.-based astronomer from Taiwan Chung-Pei MA and his colleague Nicholas MCCONNELL reported that they have taken the measure of two biggest black holes yet found in the universe, each of which has a mass ten billion times higher than the sun. The findings will be published later in the forthcoming issue of Nature.

Chung-Pei MA , a 44-year-old cosmologist and particle astrophysicist, is a professor at University of California, Berkeley. She is known to show enthusiasm in the origin of the universe and the destination of human since her childhood. She is also the winner of 2001 Excellent Young Research Prize of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association.

MA's parents are a senior journalism professor Chi-shen MA and a former Member of the Control Yuan of R.O.C. Chao-heng HUANG.

MA and her colleague Nicholas MCCONNELL used the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii to take the measures of the two black holes.

The telescope has been equipped with adaptive optics to spot the anomalous movements of stars that move close to such black holes and then get caught by their gravity. With it, MA and her colleague found that each black hole's event horizon, the boundary within which the black hole's escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, is seven times larger than the whole solar system.

The former largest known black hole has a mass 6.8 billion times higher than the sun; however, it is far smaller than the lately observed ones.


Reference:
CNA 2011/12/05 (Chinese)

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