PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Villanova University astronomer working with fellow researchers around the globe has contributed to a discovery of how a black hole that sits millions of light years away from Earth behaves.
Dr. Joey Neilsen, an assistant professor of physics, said the discovery about the M87 Black Hole's nature was made through coordinated observations by more than 300 worldwide users of the Event Horizon Telescope.
"What we have been able to determine is that the magnetic field around the black hole is so strong that it's actually able to stop the black hole from eating some of the stuff that’s around it," Neilsen explained. "We can measure with these radio telescopes, the polarization of the light that we're seeing from the black hole.
"It turns out that polarization is a really good way to measure whether there are magnetic fields around that black hole."
He said the team used the polarized light to reveal what's going on 53 million light years away.
Neilsen said the finding proves how crucial international collaboration is in getting people from hundreds of institutions working together to tackle a challenge.
"I think those are big achievments for society," he observed. "Even if they don't necessarily go directly to what specifically did they measure with the telescopes."
Neilsen said there’s so much at stake beyond this major discovery about our universe.
"There are detailed scientific implications but part of what we're doing here is we're investing in education and enthusiasm about how can we learn about stuff around us," he said. "Do we get kids excited about things? We need to do that. I think we need to do that for our society.
"One of those broader implications is just being people who want to know how the world works."