Page 7 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - Feb 10, 2021

The 27-year-long effort leading up to the discovery of Sagittarius A* earned her last year’s Nobel Prize, and is something she’s happy to share with Hawai‘i’s presti- gious facility.
FEBRUARY 10, 2021
HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK 7
FROM PAGE 6
“This prize is such a won- derful tribute to Keck,” says Ghez, who first used the Keck telescope in the ’90s. “This is really about the science that Keck opens up, and it’s one of the best places in the world to do this kind of work.”
The sciences typically have fewer women in affiliated fields, but Ghez is excited to see more and more females step- ping into leading roles — all while maintaining balance as working moms in an ever-busy world. She cites the work of Marie Curie, who won Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics in 1911 and 1903, respectively, as well as her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, who won the same chemistry accolade in 1935, as women of note.
“They set a pretty high bar,” Ghez adds with a laugh.
For her part, Ghez is mom to a 19-year-old mechanical engineering major at Johns Hopkins University, and a 15-year-old whom she de- scribes as “a builder, figure-it- out kind of guy.”
Now, those same stars are allowing Ghez to take a closer look at how gravity works near supermassive black holes, as well as how black holes grow over time.
tition can bring about.
“I’m really thrilled that the
(Above) Andrea Ghez and W. M. Keck Observatory’s NIRC instrument PHOTO COURTESY RICK PETERSON (Left) Sagittarius A* PHOTO COURTESY UCLA GALACTIC CENTER GROUP/W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY
caught her attention early on. “They’re objects that mix space and time, and defy our understanding of physics,” she shares. “It’s like a puzzle, and anything that’s a puzzle is intriguing as a researcher. You want to find interesting puzzles in which the solution can teach you more broadly about how to understand the
universe.”
“My kids have taught me so much,” she says. “They’ve helped me become a better scientist.”
“Compared to other su- permassive black holes, our galaxy is kind of a wimp,” she chuckles. “We live in a quiet, garden-variety galaxy.”
Nobel Prize recognizes all of us,” she says. “It gives it va- lidity. These are hard measure- ments and (these) two groups independently came to the same conclusion.”
Currently, the bulk of Ghez’s research focuses on the Milky Way and how stars form at the center of our galaxy, es- pecially near Sagittarius A*.
For her efforts in identifying Sagittarius A*, Ghez jointly shares half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics with Reinhard Genzel, while the other half was awarded to University of Ox- ford’s Roger Penrose. Though one would think going Dutch on such a prestigious award is a little odd, Ghez explains that it’s actually the perfect demon- stration of what healthy compe-
Her path to becoming a renowned astronomer in her field wasn’t as clear-cut as most would think. As a young- ster, Ghez’s dream was to be the first woman on the moon.
most interesting.
Black holes, in particular,
“One of the early surpris- es was to find young stars,” shares Ghez, the oldest of three daughters born to an economics professor dad and housewife-turned-art gallery director mom.
“But I also wanted to be a ballerina,” she adds with a laugh.
Once she started high school, it was clear that she had a clear aptitude for math and science, and after gradua- tion headed to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
then to California Institute of Technology for graduate school. Ghez, who initial- ly started as a math major,
grew to love the realm of physics, which, she says, addressed the kinds of issues and concepts she found to be