HFC Instructor Jesse Mason and students publish article in prestigious academic journal

HFC physics and astronomy instructor Jesse Mason and his student research group called the Dead Stars Society published their first article in The Astrophysical Journal called “Detecting the Black Hole Candidate Population in M51’s Young Massive Star Clusters: Constraints on Accreting Intermediate Mass Black Holes.”

The article describes the results of the DSS’ yearlong investigation into black holes, which are exotic remnants of dead stars that reside in young star clusters in distant galaxies. Using archival data from the Massachusetts-based Chandra X-ray Observatory (NASA's flagship x-ray telescope that has been operating in space for 25 years), the DSS was hunting for the curiously elusive intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), whose existence is necessary to support the current theory of supermassive black hole formation.

“We detected hundreds of black holes from Chandra data, characterized their energy output, cross-referenced them with existing star cluster catalogs to identify which black holes were in star clusters, characterized the output spectra of the candidates using accepted spectral modeling, and then examined radio data from a separate telescope for the remaining IMBH candidates,” explained Mason. “The overall result was (from hundreds of detected black holes) just a few maybes, which we recently named Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo, and Michelangelo (the Renaissance artists who were the namesakes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Still, we did identify some interesting black holes along the way. More importantly, we developed a new model for doing collaborative astrophysics research with community college students.”

The new model Mason referred to will be the subject of an article submitted to The Physics Teacher in mid-2025.

Community college students can make meaningful contributions to the scientific community

Eight HFC students and alumni who are members of DSS contributed to this article and are now published authors:

• Muhammad Ridha Aldhalemi
• Mariam Ismail Fawaz
• Amna Khalyleh
• Timothy McBride
• Ethan Vinson
• Zainab Bustani (currently at University of Michigan-Dearborn)
• Anthony Preston (currently at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor)
• Cortney Rinehart (currently at U-M Ann Arbor)

"Our first publication is a milestone that reflects the tenacious dedication of our students and underscores the meaningful contributions community college students can make to the scientific community,” said Mason. “It is also a testament to the unwavering encouragement and support of my colleagues across the College, whose commitment has been essential to the success of our DSS research team. This is just the beginning, and I am thrilled for what's ahead!"