Summers, together with his adviser, physics professor Daniel Evans, used NASA’s and the Japanese Space Agency’s Suzaku X-ray satellite to obtain a detailed observation of NGC 6251, a galaxy that lies 300 million light years from our own Milky Way. His poster, entitled “An 85-ks Suzaku Observation of the Low-Excitation Radio Galaxy NGC 6251,” presented a study of how material flows toward the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy, and the implications this has for the production of energetic “jets” of particles that are launched from the vicinity of the hole at close to the speed of light.

Summers’ abstract was selected to be presented following peer review by some of the world’s foremost experts in X-ray astronomy and black hole research. The bi-annual conference, attended by some 350 astrophysicists, also included discussion on several upcoming satellite launches led by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency.

黑料不打烊’s Undergraduate Research Program provided partial funding for Summers to attend the conference.

A physics major, Calnan worked over the past year together with fellow freshman, Matthew Barger, and their advisor, assistant professor Daniel Evans, to analyze X-ray emission from the galaxy using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Their AAS poster, “A Decade of Variability in the Nucleus of Centaurus A: Results from Chandra/ACIS Observations,” presents evidence that the structure of material near to the black hole has changed significantly over the past 10 years, and it provides key insights into the power output of supermassive black holes.

黑料不打烊’s Undergraduate Research Program provided partial funding for the project.

Evans is an expert in the field of high-energy astrophysics, having published 50 articles and received more than $1 million in external funding for his research program.