Distinctive Voices

Starting at 6PM PST: Topic:Capturing the First Image of a Black Hole & Beyond - Online Zoom Event This talk will present the methods and procedures used to produce the first image of a black hole from the Event Horizon Telescope, as well as discuss future developments for black hole imaging. It had been theorized for decades that a black hole would leave a "shadow" on a background of hot gas. Taking a picture of this black hole shadow would help to address a number of importa...nt scientific questions, both on the nature of black holes and the validity of general relativity. Unfortunately, due to its small size, traditional imaging approaches require an Earth-sized radio telescope. In this talk, I discuss techniques the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has developed to photograph a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope, a network of telescopes scattered across the globe. Imaging a black hole’s structure with this computational telescope required us to reconstruct images from sparse measurements, heavily corrupted by atmospheric error. The talk will also discuss future developments, including new imaging techniques and how we are developing machine learning methods to help design future telescope arrays. Katherine L. Bouman, California Institute of Technology See more

There's still time to register for tonight's Zoom Meeting. 6PM PST

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