CAPS Seminar

Event Type

Seminar/Symposium

Sponsor

Center for AstroPhysical Surveys

Location

NCSA - 1205 W Clark St, Urbana - RM 1040

Virtual

Date

Nov 22, 2024   12:00 - 1:00 pm  

Speaker

Dr. Michael Johnson

Views

33

Originating Calendar

Center for AstroPhysical Surveys

Speaker: Dr. Michael Johnson, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Date/Time: November 22, 2024 / 12 noon central.
Location: NCSA, 1040.
Zoom: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/82318062756?pwd=M3g1MFF6cytsOWFEbmU0UW1XWVoxQT09
Title:  The Black Hole Explorer: Bringing Nature's Deepest Mysteries into View with Computational Telescopes
Abstract: Explosive growth in digital technology has created a radio interferometry renaissance, enabling current and upcoming astronomical facilities such as ALMA, ngVLA, SKA, and DSA-2000. Crucially, these facilities are all computational telescopes, which rely on increasingly performant computing clusters to process the data, calibrate the instrument, and even form images. These same breakthroughs led to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) network that produced the first images of black holes. I will summarize our major EHT discoveries, which have led to new insights in black hole accretion and jet formation. I will also describe ongoing efforts to develop the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a mission that will produce the sharpest images in the history of astronomy by extending the EHT to space. BHEX will reveal the bright and narrow "photon ring" that is predicted to exist in images of black holes, produced from light that has orbited the black hole before escaping. BHEX is enabled by recent technological breakthroughs, including the development of 100 Gb/s downlink using laser communications, and it demonstrates the extraordinary potential for computation-enabled discovery in astronomy and physics in the coming decades.