Andrea M. Ghez, Nobel Prize in Physics 2020

Andrea Mia Ghez (born June 16, 1965) is an American astronomer and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA. In 2004, Discover magazine listed Ghez as one of the top 20 scientists in the United States who have shown a high degree of understanding in their respective fields. In 2020, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing one half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel, "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy." The other half was awarded to Roger Penrose. She is the fourth woman to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Career

Her current research involves using high spatial resolution imaging techniques, such as the adaptive optics system at the Keck telescopes, to study star-forming regions and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way known as Sagittarius A*. She uses the kinematics of stars near the center of the Milky Way as a probe to investigate this region. The high resolution of the Keck telescopes gave a significant improvement over the first major study of galactic center kinematics by Reinhard Genzel's group.

In 2004, Ghez was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She has appeared in a long list of notable media presentations. The documentaries have been produced by organizations such as BBC, Discovery Channel, and The History Channel; in 2006 there was a presentation on Nova. She was identified as a Science Hero by The My Hero Project. In 2019, Ghez was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).

Black Hole at the Galactic Center (Sgr A*)

By imaging the Galactic Center at infrared wavelengths, Ghez and her colleagues have been able to peer through heavy dust that blocks visible light, and to produce images of the center of the Milky Way. Thanks to the 10 m aperture of the W.M. Keck Telescope and the use of adaptive optics to correct for the turbulence of the atmosphere, these images of the Galactic Center are at very high spatial resolution and have made it possible to follow the orbits of stars around the black hole, which is also known as Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*. The partial orbits of many stars orbiting the black hole at the Galactic Center have been observed. Since 1995, SO-2 has made almost a complete elliptical orbit. Several decades more will be required to completely document the orbits of some of these stars; these measurements may provide a test of the theory of general relativity. In October 2012, a second star was identified by her team at UCLA, S0-102, orbiting the Galactic Center. Using Kepler's law, Ghez's team has used the orbital motion to show that the mass of Sgr A* is 4.1±0.6 million solar masses. Because Sgr A* is one hundred times closer than the next nearest known supermassive black hole M31* (located at the center of M31) it is now one of the best demonstrated cases for a supermassive black hole.

In 2020, she received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Personal life

Ghez is married to Tom LaTourrette who is a geologist and research scientist at the RAND corporation. They have two sons. Ghez is a passionate swimmer in the Masters Swim Club which she uses to take a break from science.

Awards

• Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy (1994)
• Packard Fellowship award (1996)
• Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society (1998)
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award of the American Physical Society (1999)
• Elected, member National Academy of Sciences (2004)
• Sackler Prize (2004)
• Gold Shield Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence (2004)
• Marc Aaronson Memorial Lectureship (2007)
• MacArthur Fellowship (2008)
• Crafoord Prize in Astronomy (2012)
• Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2012)
• Royal Society Bakerian Medal (2015)
• Honorary Doctorate of Science, University of Oxford (2019)
• Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020
• Nobel Prize in Physics (2020)