Black holes, jets, and cosmic mysteries: An interview with Elena Nokhrina.

— Elena, you lead the laboratory for fundamental and applied research on relativistic objects of the Universe at MIPT and delve into the deeply hidden mysteries of space. What drew you to astrophysics?

— Astronomy has fascinated me since school, and initially, it started with books. In my childhood, I read Joseph Shklovsky’s "The Universe. Life. Mind" (Moscow, 1962). I didn’t read it completely back then, but it contained black-and-white pictures of galaxies and nebulae that left a strong impression. The starry sky has always been alluring. Later, I came across an interesting book by Carl Sagan, "Cosmos," which had stunning illustrations! In this book, the cosmos was described from various perspectives, dating back to the times of Isaac Newton and a chronicle in London that claimed that one of the reasons for people's deaths was planets. Even there, astronomy was present! And of course, the topic of Mars research also made a significant impact on me. There was a lot written about it. Ultimately, by the time I reached high school, I was very eager to engage with space, completely unaware of what it entailed, what research was being conducted, or which galaxies were being studied. However, during my last year of school, I studied in Arizona: it has a high elevation, dry air, and, of course, a truly breathtaking sky. During that time, I visited all the telescopes at Kitt Peak — a well-known observatory, which greatly strengthened my desire. I believe many have come to astrophysics in a similar romantic way as I did.

— So you ended up in Arizona by winning an astronomy grant?

— No, it was a school exchange program. My sociability and language skills helped me. It was a lucky ticket.

— And you made the most of it! Where did you end up enrolling after school?

— I got into the Physics and Technology Institute, and I was also very lucky here. I entered the department of physics and astrophysics problems led by Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg. You had to apply separately for that department, but I really wanted to get in. At that time, Vitaly Lazarevich was still alive. He had an extraordinary charm. He hadn’t received the Nobel Prize yet, but just his name and the fact that it was astrophysics naturally attracted many. Later, we all attended a banquet for the Nobel Prize ceremony, and after that event, the influx to that department significantly increased. I am very glad that I got in there and graduated from it.

— But is it easy for a woman in astrophysics? Or is it still predominantly a male field?

— There are many men, but the number of women is also increasing. I don’t think gender affiliation has any effect, nor does it create a particular burden being surrounded mainly by men. However, it is generally harder for women since they need to balance family and work. Children and household responsibilities take up a lot of our time, and in science, one often needs to sit for long hours on a project, think, calculate, study, and preferably do so without distractions. For example, I completed my last two projects while I was seriously ill, with a high fever, and I was relieved from household duties. I had time to work. But yes, there are limitations. When children come along, you need a maternity leave, which takes time. Ultimately, I couldn’t publish articles during my maternity leave, and the Russian Science Foundation grants are given to young people — up to 35 years old. Already these limitations, meaning age restrictions, become harder to endure. But I think these difficulties are not specifically tied to astrophysics. They are generally characteristic of working women. In science, this particularly manifests in the accessibility of grants.

— You have two children, right?

— Yes, two boys. One is interested in chemistry, and the other, who is younger, is just enjoying life. But both study at the Physical and Mathematical Lyceum No. 5 in Dolgoprudny, where teachers from MIPT conduct classes. At the lyceum, my older son has Vladimir Alexandrovich Ovchinkin teaching physics, and I believe that is very valuable.

— Ovchinkin is a legend!

— Yes. I attended his additional seminars when I was studying, and I remember that pleasure. They were held late, and everyone was already tired. But in the auditorium, where everyone listened to him with bated breath, there were no empty seats — I remember it vividly! Back then, it was fascinating, and now I recall it as a powerful charge of physics.

— Two children, maternity leave, it certainly takes a toll...

— Yes, it consumes a lot of time. I don’t believe that you can leave a three-year-old child in someone else's care and switch to work. I was effectively on maternity leave for six years. In 2007, I gave birth to my older son, and in 2010, I defended my thesis because I had to do it. In 2011, I gave birth to my second son. And this lengthy process lasted until about 2014, which knocked me off my working track. In reality, I stepped away from the problems that existed in astrophysics at that time. And when you fall out of that loop, it becomes very difficult to return. During that challenging time, I was very grateful for the support of Vasily Semyonovich Beskin (my scientific advisor) and Yuri Yuryevich Kovalev, with whom I had just started working. They helped me a lot during that difficult period, gave me tasks that allowed me to return to the field. I am immensely grateful to them for that. It’s very important to have such people around during difficult stages of life.

— In general, what fundamental discoveries in your field would you highlight today?

— As my colleague Ogurtsov says in the film "Carnival Night": “I have prepared theses!” From the fundamental discoveries, I would highlight those that impress the most. For instance, a theory that is difficult to verify, or a hypothesis that at the time seemed completely fantastic but later received confirmation and became essential for explaining certain phenomena.

In this regard, I can highlight Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky. In 1932, they published a paper on the possibility of the existence of an object such as a neutron star. It’s worth noting that the neutron was only discovered in 1931! It turns out that as soon as the neutron appeared, there were people who, with the stroke of a pen, obtained the parameters of a completely new object and predicted its existence as hypothetical. After that, everything hung in the air because — how do you check if a star with a mass approximately equal to that of the Sun and a size, say, that of the city of Dolgoprudny exists? How can you see it in space? But in 1967, Anthony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell discovered the first pulsar — the Crab in the constellation Taurus. Subsequently, it quickly became clear that to explain it, you need a compact object with a very strong magnetic field of 10¹² gauss (teragauss is a unit of magnetic induction measurement.— editor’s note), which is a neutron star. These two discoveries are astonishing when considered together. Scientists initially made a hypothesis, and then it turned out to be necessary for explaining a whole range of phenomena in the cosmos.

The same goes for black holes. The very hypothesis of black holes arose from Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity. The theory linked geometry and spacetime with energy and mass. It explained the gravitational force of large objects in space as the curvature of the spacetime continuum (the fabric of spacetime). But the first precise answer to his equations was given by Karl Schwarzschild in 1915. The German astronomer found a spherically symmetric solution, which we now call the "Schwarzschild black hole." At the center of the hole, there is a singularity, meaning the parameters of space and time diverge and tend toward infinity. Accordingly, if mass is concentrated at a single point where space and time tend to infinity, then this object is a black hole. It is surrounded by an event horizon, beyond which the propagation of signals is impossible. This was a theory, but it corresponded to the solution of Einstein's equations and wasn’t liked by all physicists precisely because of the presence of physical divergence (formally infinite density).

Another pair of events can also be highlighted — the black hole was first obtained as a theory, and then the redshift of an object was measured, the physics of which