Special Public Talk -

Shep Doeleman (Harvard Center for Astrophysics & Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration)

May 1, 2019 6:15 PM

Location: Leacock 132
Public Lecture

A very special special public talk by Dr. Shepherd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope, which recently produced the first ever photo of a black hole!

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is an array of radio telescopes that can resolve the event horizons of the nearest supermassive black holes. EHT detects light that originate from gas that is close to the event horizon of a black hole, and this light travels unimpeded to telescopes on the Earth. The primary goal of the EHT is to resolve and image the predicted ring of light that orbit black holes due to the strong gravitational pull. After 1.5 years of data reduction and analysis, we report success: we have imaged a black hole! This talk will cover the project and first results as well as some future directions.

Free and open to all, no knowledge of astronomy needed or expected!

Please register on Eventbrite to get a ticket!