Yaël Nazé facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Yaël Nazé
Yaël Nazé at "L’Espace des sciences" on 16 October 2012
Born	1976 Baudour, Belgium
Education	Faculty of Engineering of UMons, University of Liège
Known for	Research about massive stars
Spouse(s)	Gregor Rauw
Awards	Jean Perrin Prize, Stroobant Biennial Prize, Roberval Prize, Europlanet Prize for Excellence in Public Engagement with Planetary Science
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy, Astrophysics
Institutions	University of Liège, National Fund for Scientific Research
Thesis	(2004)

Yaël Nazé is a Belgian astrophysicist, an expert in space science. She is also an author and a professor at the University of Liège. She studies very large, bright stars called massive stars. She also looks at how these stars affect the space around them. In her work, she uses pictures and information from different space telescopes. She has also helped create new observation satellites.

Nazé also works to teach people about space. This is called science outreach. She especially likes to share information about planetary science, which is the study of planets. She has written many books and articles. These connect astronomy to other parts of human culture, like archaeology (studying old things) and art (like painting and music). She has won awards for her research and for sharing science with others.

Early life and education

Yaël Nazé was born in Baudour, Belgium in 1976. When she was 10, she knew she wanted to be an astrophysicist. This happened after she watched constellations from her home and read about astronomy in newspapers. Before her last year of high school, Nazé wrote a letter to an astrophysicist named Jean-Marie Vreux. She wanted to know what to study to become an astronomer. He later became her teacher and mentor.

Nazé earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1999. She then got her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Liège in March 2004.

What does an astrophysicist do?

At the astrophysics center of the University of Liège, Yaël Nazé does research. She helps create new satellites that observe space. She also looks at information from different space observatories around the world.

She mostly studies massive stars. These stars start out very big and bright. They then change into other types of stars, like Wolf-Rayet stars. Her work helps us understand these stars better. She especially studies their strong stellar winds, which are streams of gas flowing from the stars. Her discoveries have been shared in many news reports.

For example, she has studied the X-ray light coming from Zeta Puppis. This is one of the closest massive stars to Earth. In 2013, she looked at data collected over ten years. This helped her see how the X-ray light changed. Her project showed that winds from massive stars are not smooth. Instead, they have many hot and cool parts. She also found wind-blown bubbles in the Magellanic Clouds. These are small galaxies near our own.

Using different X-ray telescopes, she has studied many kinds of massive stars. This includes magnetic stars and stars that are part of a binary star system. In binary systems, two stars orbit each other. Their stellar winds can crash into each other. For example, in 2007, she studied a massive star system called HD 5980. She found that the winds from these stars were colliding. This was the first time such a collision was clearly seen outside our galaxy.

She looked at this binary star again in 2016. She was surprised to find it was much brighter than before. Its X-ray light was also stronger. Her team understood this because of a new idea about how hot matter cools. When stellar winds collide, they make a lot of X-rays. But if the hot matter cools too fast, the X-ray light can dim. By 2016, the collision had become more stable, allowing the X-ray light to get brighter.

In 2011, Nazé also led a team that studied the Cyg OB2 #9 binary star system. They used data from space observatories to look at X-ray light. This light was made by colliding stellar winds in that system.

Since October 2019, Yaël Nazé has been a Senior Research Associate. She works at the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS).

As a professor at the University of Liège, Nazé teaches many subjects. She teaches general physics and astronomy. She also teaches advanced topics like spectroscopy (studying light) and astrobiology (life in space). She also teaches courses about how ideas in astronomy have changed. She teaches about critical thinking and science communication. She believes that sharing knowledge with the next generation is very important. She tries to make her classes fun and interactive.

Sharing science with everyone

Yaël Nazé does not just share her knowledge in classrooms. She also gives public talks. She hopes to make people excited about space. In 2012, she won an award for her work in sharing planetary science. This award recognized her efforts to reach many different groups of people. This includes children, artists, and older people. For 15 years, she has worked to show how important women have been in astronomy. She also shows girls that they can have careers in astronomy.

To help more people learn about the cosmos (the universe), Yaël Nazé started a special service. With a colleague, she created a daily summary of space news. This news was translated into French for journalists. To get children interested in astronomy, she designed a permanent exhibit about the Solar System. This exhibit is in the children's ward of the Bruyères Hospital in Belgium. She also created booklets, hands-on activities, and games. These were published by the university's science office.

Awards and recognition

Yaël Nazé has received several awards for her research and for sharing science:

• Jean Perrin Prize (2017): This award is from the French Physical Society. It recognizes her work in sharing science with the public.
• Stroobant Biennial Prize (2017): This award is from the Royal Academy of Belgium. It recognized her astrophysics research from 2015-2016.
• Roberval Prize (2014): This award is for an excellent book about technology. She won it for her book Voyager dans l'espace (Travel in Space).
• Europlanet Prize for Excellence in Public Engagement with Planetary Science (2012): This award recognized her great work in sharing planetary science with the public.
• Burgen Scholarship (2010): This scholarship is from the Academy of Europe.
• Jean Rostand Prize (2009): She won this for her book L'astronomie des anciens (The astronomy of the ancients).
• The Jean Teghem Prize (2009): This award is for researchers who do outstanding work in sharing science.
• Verdickt-Rijdams Prize and Marie Popelin Prize/Woman of the Year (2007): She won these awards for her book L'astronomie au féminin (The feminine side of astronomy).

Images for kids

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  Yaël Nazé at "L’Espace des sciences" on 16 October 2012

See also

In Spanish: Yaël Nazé para niños