Emirati researcher makes discovery on evolution of galaxies

Aisha Al Yazeedi, 25, has published her first paper analysing a galaxy called MaNGA 1-166919

Aisha Al Yazeedi, an Emirati astrophysics researcher at NYU Abu Dhabi who has recently published a scientific paper about a galaxy.

An Emirati astrophysics researcher has published a paper describing the light and radio signals emanating from a galaxy with a supermassive black hole at the centre.

The findings by Aisha Al Yazeedi, 25, of NYU Abu Dhabi, may prove useful to researchers as they try to understand how such enormous black holes influence changes in their galaxies.

Ms Al Yazeedi likes to share a picture that illustrates space through the lens of Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope.

A composite produced from hundreds of photos, the remarkable image shows about 5,500 galaxies.

This is a tiny portion of the known universe, so tiny that another 30million similar images would be required to show the universe in full.

“This by itself is something that I contemplate all the time,” Ms Al Yazeedi said.

“We’re so lucky to be here. I will always be a student learning about space. This is something phenomenal to me.”

This passion for understanding space and mankind’s place in it led Ms Al Yazeedi and a team of co-researchers to analyse the galaxy, called MaNGA 1-166919, in her first scientific paper.

MaNGA 1-166919, one of an estimated two trillion galaxies in the universe, is characterised by having a particularly active supermassive black hole, a huge type of black hole that draws material into itself.

When a supermassive black hole is particularly active it forms an “accretion disk”, described by one author as a “rotating queue” of material such as gases and stars waiting to be drawn into it.

This accretion disk forms part of what is called the galaxy’s Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). As the material moves ever faster, it heats up and emits signals of the kind analysed in the paper.

The radio signals were found to consist of two jets emanating from the galaxy’s centre and these signals corresponded well with the optical signals from the galaxy.

A composite produced from hundreds of photos shows about 5,500 galaxies.

“This is the goal: to understand the physics of the SMBH (supermassive black hole) at the centre of the galaxy, and how it influences the galaxy’s evolution,” Ms Al Yazeedi said.

“I picked this galaxy because it has very interesting radio morphology. Simply by looking at the radio morphology, you could tell that this galaxy has an AGN, which tells you that the SMBH at the centre of the galaxy is active and therefore it has an effect on the galaxy.”

Radio morphology is a function of optical identification for the sources for which there are radio images.

The analysis employed specialist software to process vast amounts of data on the galaxy collected by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico, US.

In carrying out this work, the results of which were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, the researchers hope to gain insights that could lead to a better understanding of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

“We need to work on a long list of galaxies to see if the same physics applies,” Ms Al Yazeedi said. “We want to take this further with other galaxies.”

The Milky Way does not have an AGN, but research has indicated it may have had one as recently as within the last few million years. When, as predicted, the Milky Way collides with another galaxy called Andromeda in 4.5 billion years, another AGN could form.

People look at the Milky Way galaxy rising in the night sky in Kuwait's Al Salmi desert, 120Km north of the capital.

The Milky Way galaxy and various constellations are visible to the naked eye.

A woman looks at the Milky Way rising in the night sky in Kuwait's Al Salmi desert.

People watch as the stars light up the sky over the rolling sand dunes.

The Milky Way galaxy rising above the Judaean mountains between Jericho in the occupied West Bank and Ein Gedi in Israel.

A Palestinian man watches stars above the Judaean mountains between Jericho in the occupied West Bank and Ein Gedi in Israel.

The Milky Way galaxy rising above the Judaean mountains between Jericho in the occupied West Bank and Ein Gedi in Israel.

The Milky Way galaxy rising above the Judaean mountains between Jericho in the occupied West Bank and Ein Gedi in Israel.

Ms Al Yazeedi, who is supported by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, has been conducting research at NYU Abu Dhabi’s Centre for Astro, Particle and Planetary Physics under the supervision of Dr Joseph Gelfand, an associate professor of physics and co-author of the paper, through the university’s Kawader programme.

Aimed at well-qualified graduates and post-doctoral researchers, the scheme aims to build capability within the UAE by offering a three-year salaried programme tailored to the interests of each researcher.

The UAE has become a key player in space exploration, launching the Mars orbiter, Hope, a year after sending one of its own astronauts to the International Space Station.

Next year the country aims to send a rover called Rashid to the Moon.

“It’s like we’re making history with all the milestones we’re taking in space science and the space industry,” Ms Al Yazeedi said.

“It makes me very, very proud and very lucky to be an Emirati in this era.”

A 2017 graduate of Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, Ms Al Yazeedi hopes to continue her research by going on to study for a PhD.

Space year 2021 - in pictures

This is a year of landmark space missions. 'The National' looks at the five most exciting ones.

The UAE's Hope probe (pictured) arrived on Mars in February. It will studied why the planet's atmosphere is being stripped away, making it impossible for life to exist.

China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft includes a Mars orbiter and a rover. Pictured is the Long March-5 rocket that carried Tianwen-1 into space.

Nasa's Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February. The return mission brought back Mars soil and rock samples. This is a computer-generated image of the rover.

The James Webb Space Telescope is set to be the most advanced space observatory. It will orbit the Sun and will be able to see what the universe looked like millions of years ago. It is expected to be launched on October 31.

Nasa will launch a return mission to the Moon. The Space Launch System, world's most powerful rocket (pictured), will carry the Orion spacecraft into space as part of the Artemis 1 mission. Orion will orbit the Moon for several days. If successful, it will pave the way for a crewed flight to the Moon in 2023. Courtesy: Nasa

2021 will also be the year of space tourism. Actor Tom Cruise, director Doug Liman and another private citizen will fly to the International Space Station as part of a private space flight with a company called Axiom. Mr Cruise and Mr Liman will film a movie there. Russia will also try to film a move in space around the same time. SpaceX is providing the ride. IMDb

In July, Nasa was set to launch a mission that would deliberately crash a spacecraft (artist impression is pictured) into an asteroid's moon to change the space rock's course.