Dr Wendy Williams works as a Project Scientist at the Square Kilometre Array Observatory. For over a decade she has worked on making images of the sky at low radio frequencies (similar toF M radio) and combining this data with that from other wavelengths. This challenging and computationally intensive task has led to new images of the radio sky and millions of new radio sources. The radio emission comes from galaxies and black holes and Wendy has used these new surveys to study the link between the formation of stars in galaxies and the growth of the blackholes at their centres.

Here be DRAGNS

Almost all galaxies have at their centres black holes that are over a billion times more massive than our Sun. Though small in size compared to the galaxies themselves, when they accrete matter these black holes can produce extensive particle jets and influence the formation of stars in their host galaxies.The physical processes of black hole accretion and star formation can both be seen at radio frequencies. Thus, by surveying the sky with radio telescopes, now with the Low Frequency Array and in the future with the Square Kilometre Array, we can map out the intricate interplay between black holes and star-formation in their host galaxies as galaxies grow and evolve in the Universe.