Nasa Professor presents a lecture on “Physics of Black Holes”

The Departments of Physics and the Astronomy Club at Birzeit University hosted the Astrophysicist and researcher at Harvard University at NASA Dr. Raid Suleiman to deliver a colloquium on the “Physics of Black Holes”.

Suleiman explained to the audience the theory behind the formation of various types of black holes and gave examples on some black holes that exist in our Galaxy “the Milky Way”. He also talked about the gravitational field of black holes and how it affects the motion of stars in the neighborhood around the black hole. The topic of the colloquium attracted a big number of students, academics and interested audience from the local community who asked many questions about these ‘mysterious’ objects called “Black Holes”.

During his visit to the university’s “Michel and Sanieh Hakim Observatory”, Suleiman discussed with a number of students the possibilities to develop the observatory, including its infrastructure and through research. He also encouraged students to keep on participating in “the Arab winter School for Astrophysics” where three BZU students participated last year when it was held in Morocco.

Raid Suleiman is a Palestinian-American scientist who works at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Atomic and Molecular Physics Division for the Atmospheric Measurements Group. He is also affiliated with the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences (SSP) Division. He is a member of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO2) Science Team and a CO-I on the NASA's newly selected TEMPO. Suleiman is the president of the Arab Winter School for astrophysics (AWSA) and one of the founders of the Arab Astronomical Society (ArAs).
(Source: University Web site)
*And proudly I myself was one of the audience!