Black holes are some of the most bizarre objects in the universe. They can have as much mass as a billion stars combined. How did they form and how did they get so big?
“What are they doing to the galaxies in which they live?” asks Dr Ilana Feain of the CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility.
This is one of the biggest questions facing astronomers in the 21st Century. The 29-year-old astronomer will use her L’ORÉAL Australia For Women In Science Fellowship in her quest for an answer to this question.
Sarah Pryke has always had an eye for the shape, colour and movement of animals. After growing up surrounded by wildlife in a remote rural area of South Africa, she was employed as an illustrator by the local museum while studying for her science degree at the University of Natal.
Now, as a post-doctoral fellow of the at Macquarie University in Sydney, she is working in the Kimberleys investigating the impact of colour on the behaviour of the Gouldian finch, a small, dazzling bird of Australia’s tropical savannah.