Position: PhD candidate, School of Natural Sciences (Physics), University of Tasmania
Field of research/work: Astrophysics
YTS Years: 2025
Samuel's Notable career moments
Science teacher introduces us to dark matter, which we know little about. “Maybe one of you will work it out”
Graduates high school in Perth, topping in English and Music.
Starts at University studying Physics and English.
Switch to studying Physics and Maths.
Travel to China on a fully paid trip for the International Physicists Summer Camp.
Graduate University (just) and starts working at the Australian Tax Office (ATO).
Start doing a Masters in astrophysics part time.
That was difficult. Quits the ATO to do Masters full time.
Moved to Hobart to start a PhD in astrophysics
About Samuel Hansen
Black Holes are a lot like toilets on an airplane. They suck up anything you put in them, they won’t return anything you give them and it’s best to wait a little bit after someone else uses it. And sometimes, when things are just right, they will launch matter into their surroundings. We call the matter that is launched from black holes, (creatively) black hole jets. I’m not sure what we call jets from airplane toilets.
I spend most days studying black hole jets. What makes them start? Why do some black holes have jets and others don’t? How do these jets affect the stars around black holes? We only have parts of answers to these interesting questions. Black holes and jets take millions, even billions of years to launch. That’s even older than your teacher! Because of that I work with computers to simulate black hole jets and compare this to real life jets. The model I use can create a jet in less than a second! This means we can make lots of tweaks until we get the best matching jet that we see in the sky.
