Julia M. Riley (née Hill) is a British astrophysicist who developed the

Fanaroff–Riley classification The Fanaroff–Riley classification is a scheme created by B.L. Fanaroff and J.M. Riley in 1974, which is used to distinguish radio galaxies with active nuclei based on their radio luminosity or brightness of their radio emissions in relation ...

Personal and professional background

She is the daughter of Philippa (born Pass) and British marine geophysicist Maurice Hill and granddaughter of Nobel Prize–winning physiologist Archibald Vivian Hill. Riley is a Fellow of

Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...

associated with the

Cavendish Astrophysics Group The Cavendish Astrophysics Group (formerly the Radio Astronomy Group) is based at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The group operates all of the telescopes at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory except for the 32m MERLI ...

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. Her primary field of research is in the area of

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation comin ...

. Riley lectures and supervises physics within the

Natural Sciences Tripos The Natural Sciences Tripos (NST) is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of Natural Sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, ...

at the University of Cambridge.

Fanaroff–Riley type I and II

In 1974, along with Fanaroff, she wrote a paper classifying

radio galaxies A radio galaxy is a galaxy with giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure. These energetic radio lobes are powered by jets from its active galactic nucleus. They have luminosities up to 1039 W at radio wav ...

into two types based on their morphology (shape). Fanaroff and Riley's classification became known as Fanaroff–Riley type I and II of

(FRI and FRII). In FRI sources the major part of the radio emission comes from closer to the centre of the source, whereas in FRII sources the major part of the emission comes from hotspots set away from the centre (see

active galaxies An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not pr ...

References

External links

Webpage at Girton CollegeWebpage at Cavendish Astrophysics Group
21st-century British astronomers Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge Living people Keynes family Women astronomers British women scientists Academics of the University of Cambridge Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century British astronomers {{England-painter-stub