Priyamvada Natarajan – Black Holes: Cosmic Enigmas

Astrophysicist, Professor at Yale University, member of the prestigious NASA – LISA Science Study Team, Priyamvada Natarajan electrified audiences at JLF Houston, with her presentation on the enigmatic composition of Black Holes and their impact on the gravitational waves of the universe. 

With an infectious childlike excitement, Priyamvada invited the audience into the astrophysicist’s world of ‘Atoms, Dark Matter and Dark Energy’, clarifying that Dark Energy dominates the composition of the universe by 72%, hugely impacting on the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Through simple graphics, Priyamvada made the concept of Space-Time accessible to the audience, explaining how the reformulation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity re-calibrated the geometry, content and shape of the universe. She described the universe as not being a fixed grid but a bendable sheet into which matter creates ‘potholes’ by virtue of its weight, along which light has to travel. Each pothole leaves its imprint on light and hence its journey over such potholes alters the quality of light.

Priyamvada illuminated that a Black Hole, therefore, is an extremely deep pothole – so compact and dense that it creates a puncture, capturing any light that strays close to it, sucking it into its vortex without any hope of release. These are extremely violent places in the cosmos but it is possible for light to graze past and not sucked in. Other possibilities too exist as matter could be drawn into the ‘Light Horizon’ and remain in limbo forever or move into the ‘Event Horizon’, the point of no return.

Are Black Holes real? Yes, says Priyamvada, they are harbored at the center of most Galaxies. Some are tiny, some are a million times more the mass of our sun, but they all exert an outsized influence on their galaxy! They punch beyond their weight as they alter and shape the energetics of their galaxies. Black Holes could be in either one of the two basic states – Fasting, as they deplete all the gas around them or Feasting, as they actively capture matter and illuminate cosmic space as Quasars. 

A stunning image of the center of galaxy M87, the very first image of a black hole, through the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, provided the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes, opening a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. The image of the bright ring around the center of M87 as light bends in the intense gravity around this black hole, 6.5 billion times more massive than our sun, was the highlight of this spectacular presentation.

Priyamvada wrapped up by reaching out to all the young people in the audience, inviting them to explore a ‘life in science’, saying that for the first time, thanks to technology, a scientific prediction could be validated within one’s own lifetime. On a personal note, she shared her experience of a prediction she had made on Quasar outflows, being ratified twenty years later! 

However no technology is possible without basic science and now more than ever, the world needs its brightest minds to help solve global problems, the most urgent among them being climate change. 

The buzz of excitement in the hall as the audience got up to leave was ample testimony to the inspiring talk that Priyamvada Natarajan mesmerized us with!