The Event Horizon Telescope: Exploring the Cosmic Unknown Through Global Collabo
Wed May 12, 7:00 PM - Wed May 12, 8:30 PM
in 24 days

The international team from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is back to share new insights into their groundbreaking work and highlight the power and importance of scientific collaboration on a global scale.

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 one. Einstein’s theories predict 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. The EHT is a global array of radio dishes, linked together by a network of atomic clocks to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope that achieves the highest angular resolution possible from the surface of our planet.

On April 10, 2019, the EHT project reported success: these scientists imaged a black hole at the heart of the galaxy Virgo A, and revealed the predicted strong gravitationally lensed ring that confirms the theory of General Relativity at the boundary of a black hole. EHT founding director Shep Doeleman and several EHT team members describe the cutting-edge instrumentation required, how this first image answers some questions and raises more, and the scientific vision and collaborative spirit that held the group together.