Sophie A. Young (University of Tasmania) has been awarded the Thomas H Laby Medal, recognising the most outstanding Honours or Masters thesis in physics by a student from an Australian University, for the thesis titled: “Free-Free Absorption in Young Radio Galaxies”.

The distant Universe is packed with radio galaxies emitting intense bursts of synchrotron light from supermassive black hole jets. Most of them are young, small and difficult to study.

Sophie Young created a theoretical sample of these radio galaxies that can now be used to help study them in real life. She showed how they will influence their neighbourhood by injecting energy, and momentum into the gas clouds between stars.