Seeing the Unseeable: Capturing an Image of a Black Hole
Description:
Black holes are cosmic objects so small and dense, that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. Until recently, no one had ever seen what a black hole actually looked like. Einstein's theories predicted that a distant observer should see a ring of light encircling the black hole, which forms when radiation emitted by infalling hot gas is lensed by the extreme gravity near the event horizon. And that’s where the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) comes in. A global array of radio dishes linked together by a network of atomic clocks to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope, EHT was in search of supermassive black hole where this ring feature could be measured. On April 10, 2019, the EHT project reported success: they had imaged a black hole! That image shows the predicted strong gravitational lensing that confirms the theory of General Relativity at the boundary of a black hole. Watch the live webcast as Sheperd Doeleman, founding director of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, talks about this historic achievement was accomplished and shares details of the first results. Sign up to get a reminder: https://s.si.edu/3cAuumu The Exploring Space Lecture Series is made possible by the generous support of Aerojet Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance.
Video Duration:
47 min 46 sec
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