Taking Pictures and Making Movies of Supermassive Black Holes

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 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 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global array of radio dishes that has now successfully imaged the 6.5 billion solar mass black hole at the center of galaxy M87, and the 4 million solar mass black hole at the center of the Milky Way – both exhibiting the predicted strong gravitational lensing. Subsequent observations have revealed ordered magnetic fields on horizon scales with implications on how black holes launch relativistic jets of material. What’s next? The next-generation EHT (ngEHT) is a project to expand the EHT in several ways, enabling us to make full-color, high definition movies of black holes in pursuit of the next big questions.

This talk will cover the first EHT results, future directions, and progress towards realizing the ngEHT.

Fecha y lugar: 11/06/2026 – 12:30 | Salón de Actos
Shep Doeleman
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian