Dr James Miller-Jones
Curtin University
Research Field: X-ray Binaries – Radio astronomy
As material spirals into a black hole, magnetic processes result in some of the matter being diverted outwards and accelerated into interstellar space at close to the speed of light. These jets of matter are akin to ultra-powerful searchlights.
James spearheads a large international collaboration, utilising the world’s most powerful radio telescopes, to understand how these jets form and evolve. By studying jets from low-mass black holes in binary systems, he and his team hope to transfer this understanding to the jets launched by super-massive black holes, which evolve over millions of years but are powerful enough to regulate black hole growth, star formation, and even galaxy evolution.