By Nadia Sapuan
Pictures by Shahiddan Saidi

KUALA LUMPUR, 8 May 2017 – Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), through the Space Sciences Centre, organised the Space Exploration and Updates Programme in conjunction with the International Conference on Space Science and Communication (ICONSPACE2017), at the National Planetariun, recently.

Four speakers were invited to share their experiences in the field of astronomy and space research, and one of them was the young Malaysian scientist, Nur Adlyka Ainur Annuar, who was part of the team which discovered the existence of a Supermassive Black Hole, recently.

Nur Adlyka said to find the black holes, the researchers utilised the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) which is the X-ray telescope (X-ray) of the Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

She added NuSTAR can help in providing a clear image of the black hole despite the thick gas and dust.

“One of the black holes that we found, was sheltered from the thick gas and dust in one of the galaxies that are close to the earth, Galaxy NGC 1448, which was 38 million light years from our galaxy,” she explained.

Meanwhile, one of the speakers, Professor Emeritus of UKM, Professor Emerita Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman said, that Malaysians need to be innovative in contributing to the development space science.

In her speech, she also advised students to strive in achieving their ambitions.

Also present were UKM Space Sciences Centre Director, Prof Ir Dr Mardina Abdullah, Real Time Space Weather Expert, Dr Zahra Bouya and Antarctic Research Expert of UKM, Assoc Prof Dr Wayan Suparta.