Earlier this year, groundbreaking news of the Event Horizon Telescope’s research garnered media’s attention locally, nationally and internationally. EHT’s capturing of the first ever image of a black hole, named Powehi, has led to researchers to the next level of research.
Come and join in an enlightening presentation by Dr. Ziri Younsi and Dr. Junhan Kim on black hole research and findings from a collaborative experiment through the Event Horizon Telescope at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, at ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center’s planetarium. Cost is $8 for members and $10 for non-members. To purchase tickets, please call 932-8901.
The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration is an experiment to observe and image supermassive black holes at the highest resolutions ever achieved by creating a global network of radio telescopes. In April this year, EHT announced its first scientific results: an image of Powehi, the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87.
This presentation will begin by discussing the image of Powehi highlighting the impressive international collaborative efforts and instrumental developments that made it possible to produce this image.
The discussion will also incorporate theoretical work within the EHT in calculating how matter and light behave around black holes, comparing that with the newly collected data from EHT and providing interpretation of the image. The evening’s presentation will conclude by sharing what researchers have learnt so far from this now famous image, and what the future holds for both the Event Horizon Telescope and for studies of supermassive black holes.
Dr. Ziri Younsi is a Leverhulme Trust Fellow in Astrophysics at University College London.
After graduating from the University of Cambridge and subsequently from UCL, Younsi worked in the BlackHoleCam project as a Humboldt Fellow at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. Since 2014, he has worked in the EHT, developing and performing supercomputer simulations of black holes and horizon-scale black-hole imaging, enabling comparison with and interpretation of EHT images.
Dr. Junhan Kim is a Robert A. Millikan postdoctoral scholar in Physics at California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Kim did his Ph.D. studies in the Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. For his thesis entitled “Instruments and Statistical Tools to Study Supermassive Black Holes at Event Horizon Scales,” he traveled to the South Pole four times since 2014 to incorporate the South Pole Telescope to the Event Horizon Telescope array.
‘Imiloa Astronomy Center is located at 600 ‘Imiloa Place in Hilo, off of Komohana and Nowelo streets at the UH-Hilo Science and Technology Park. For more information, visit: www.imiloahawaii.org.