Astronomy Night: Getting the Most out of a Black Hole

Every large enough galaxy, including ours, hosts a supermassive black hole at its center, and we also know of many smaller black hole candidates in and around our Galaxy. Dr. Tchekhovskoy will explain what are black holes and how they manage to curve space around them. He will discuss their origin and the various fireworks on the sky they produce. In particular, he will explain how the process of black holes grazing on the surrounding gas makes them appear bright and how it is possible that some black holes are able to shoot out collimated jets of gas straight at us and whether that should make us concerned. Dr. Tchekhovskoy will finish by reviewing some of the ways scientists have devised to measure black holes and how our nation's largest supercomputers can help us in this quest.

Speaker: Alexander (Sasha) Tchekhovskoy, UC Berkeley