• Question: What studies have you done by looking at the universe, or was it only theory?

    Asked by mace520hang to stephaniebuttigieg, queeniechan, Paul on 2 Jul 2025.
    • Photo: Queenie Chan

      Queenie Chan answered on 2 Jul 2025:

      I study small bodies like asteroids that are orbiting around in our solar system, we make remote sensing observations and study them up close by space missions or even samples carried from these bodies directly to Earth for detailed analyses.

    • Photo: Stephanie Buttigieg

      Stephanie Buttigieg answered on 4 Jul 2025:

      My work is all theoretical. I use simulations to study how many supermassive black holes are merging with each other. But in astrophysics, it is always very important to make sure that your theories or simulations match the real universe. That is why I use results from people who are observing the Universe to compare to my predictions. A big part of my research is trying to figure out why some of our predictions from theory do not match with observations, even though we are modelling all the physics that we know of! I’m constantly asking the question ‘What are we missing in our theory?’

Comments