Helen Russell

Contact

• workRoom A110b Centre for Astronomy & Particle Theory
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 74 87529
• Helen.Russell@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

STFC Rutherford & Anne McLaren Fellow, University of Nottingham (2019 - )

STFC Rutherford Fellow, University of Cambridge (2017 - 2019)

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge (2014 - 2017)

International Junior Research Fellow, Durham University (2013 - 2014)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Waterloo (2010 - 2013)

PhD in Astronomy, University of Cambridge (2006 - 2010)

Research Summary

I am an observational astronomer using X-ray, sub-mm and optical telescopes to understand the most energetic events in the lives of massive galaxies. Powerful jets of high-energy particles launched… read more

Current Research

I am an observational astronomer using X-ray, sub-mm and optical telescopes to understand the most energetic events in the lives of massive galaxies. Powerful jets of high-energy particles launched in the strong gravitational environment around a supermassive black hole can heat up the surrounding gas and suppress star formation to choke off the growth of the host galaxy. Major cluster mergers are the most energetic events in the Universe since the Big Bang. The energy generated by the collision is dissipated in shocks and turbulence, which heat up and disrupt the hot gas atmospheres surrounding the constituent galaxies.

Press releases:

'H' is for hot and huge in Chandra image (NASA, 2023)

Colossal collisions linked to solar system science (NASA, 2022)

Chandra data test 'Theory of Everything' (NASA, 2020)

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th anniversary (NASA, 2019)

Black-hole-powered jets forge fuel for star formation (ALMA/NRAO/NASA, 2017)

Hitomi mission charts hot winds of a galaxy cluster for the first time (JAXA/NASA/ESA, 2016)

ALMA witnesses intergalactic deluge feeding a black hole (ALMA/NRAO/ESO, 2016)