An Astrophysicist Answers Your Questions About Black Holes, Supernovae and Neutron Stars

Learn the secrets of some of the most mysterious phenomena in space this Thursday, February 27, at Hopcat in Detroit

Orion Nebula

Learn the secrets of some of the most mysterious phenomena in space this Thursday, February 27, at Hopcat in Detroit.

Wayne State Astrophysicist Ed Cackett will help you explore the university’s latest research on the physics of black holes and neutron stars, both some of the most compact objects in the universe. 

Neutron stars, for example, says Cackett, are some of the densest.

“The material inside [a neutron star] is denser than an atomic nucleus. The equivalent is crushing down the entirety of humanity into the size of a sugar cube.” – Ed Cackett, astrophysicist

Cackett also studies black holes, one of the most misunderstood physical phenomena in popular culture.

He says, with Wayne State’s Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory in New Mexico, he and other researchers can look at how objects fall into black holes, specifically, by measuring the light that’s emitted as they fall past the event horizon.

Click the player to hear CultureShift’s Amanda LeClaire talk with Cackett about his research and how popular culture often gets astrophysics wrong. 

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Author

  • Amanda LeClaire is an award-winning journalist and managing editor and lead reporter of WDET's new environmental series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project, as well as WDET's CuriosiD podcast. She was the host of WDET’s CultureShift and a founding producer of the station’s flagship news talk show *Detroit Today*. Amanda also served as a Morning Edition host at WDET and previously worked as a host, audio and video producer, and reporter for Arizona Public Media.