Black Holes - What Do They Look Like?

Despite their dark name, black holes power some of the brightest objects in the Universe. Jason Dexter will discuss the observational evidence for the existence of black holes, the types of black holes that can be seen and the reasons why. What is an accretion disk that forms around a black hole? Jason will attempt to answer this question and others, as well as describe what the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way will look like when Astronomers manage to image it in the near future.
Jason Dexter got his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, and is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Astronomy Department at UC Berkeley. He is interested in astrophysical black holes, and what we can learn from the light emitted by gas falling into them.
This free public talk is presented as part of the monthly Science@Cal Lecture Series.

Room 100