Molokai graduate co-authors research on nebula
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The Maui News
A recent Molokai High School alumna captured the first look at magnetic fields within the Horsehead Nebula and published the insight in The Astronomical Journal alongside professional astronomers.
Mallory Go, who graduated from Molokai in 2021, co-authored a paper titled "Magnetic Fields in the Horsehead Nebula" using data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Go was awarded time under the Maunakea Scholars program, a scheme that gives students at high schools in Hawaii access to the telescopes on Maunakea, according to a news release.
"When I heard about the Maunakea Scholars program I was excited," Go said in a news release. "It seemed to me to be such a fantastic opportunity to use the Telescopes on Maunakea. I chose to study the Horsehead nebula because I thought it was beautiful and I didn't find much research on it."
The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark cloud of dust and gas in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located next to the south easternmost star of Orion's Belt.
Using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in 2018, Go obtained unique images of the Horsehead Nebula in polarized light, which is a technique astronomers use to reveal the magnetic field within the nebula.
The JCMT is the largest astronomical telescope in the world designed specifically to operate in the submillimeter wavelength region of the spectrum, the news release said.
After she proposed her observations while working with astronomer Dr. Harriet Parsons, Go presented her work as part of her Science Fair representing Molokai High School.
Go is now a student at Brown University studying public health.
Later, Go's data was shared with top astronomers in the field who pursued the work further, such as Jihye Hwang, Kate Pattle and Jongsoo Kim, and performed a quantitative analysis of the strength and role of magnetic fields in the region.
"The data are impressive and what they tell us is even more impressive," said co-author Dr. Kate Pattle from University College London. "I am delighted that Mallory has given us the chance to work on such a beautiful and iconic region of the sky – and what we've found helps us to understand why the Horsehead Nebula has the shape that it does."