Black holes are one of the most extreme kinds of objects in the universe. They create regions where gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape! They are windows into the true nature of gravity itself, and have revealed a cosmos far stranger than Newton, or even Einstein, ever imagined. Lurking in the centre of our very own Milky Way galaxy is a supermassive black hole, 4 million times the mass of the Sun, and we only really saw it for the first time in 2022. So, how much do we really understand about the darkest corners of our universe?
Mallika Sinha is a PhD student studying astrophysics at Monash University, where they research gravitational waves and the black hole collisions that produce them. They completed a double degree with Honours in mathematics and physics at the Australian National University, and have worked at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre, communicating complex science to public audiences. Mallika is a member of Ozgrav and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration.
