Images on the horizon: A view of black holes from the Event Horizon Telescope

Supermassive black holes, located at the centers of galaxies, are at once an extreme consequence of general relativity and the sites of energetic processes that shape the cosmos.  Nevertheless, their extraordinarily compact nature has prohibited the direct study of the key gravitational and astrophysical features underlying their nature and responsible for the astronomical importance.  However, it has now become possible to generate images of a handful of astrophysical black holes that resolve their event horizons.  I will discuss how this unique ability has become possible and how it is already beginning to shed light upon fundamental questions in both gravitational physics and high-energy astrophysics.

Speaker: Avery Broderick, Perimiter