How to see Black Holes

November 24, 2018Byens Lys Copenhagen
Event Horizon
Doors open: 19:00
Start programme: 20:00
Byens Lys
Fabriksområdet 99
Copenhagen

This season ends with one of greatest mysteries of the universe: black holes. What is a black hole? Where do you find a really big one? How does it look? How to image a mustard seed in New York? How to build a Black Hole Camera? Why do astronomers love being on mountains?

Can one ever see a black hole? Yes, and it may happen very soon. Black holes are one of the most fundamental and exotic predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Their defining feature is the event horizon, the ultimate boundary, where everything disappears and from which not even light can escape. Supermassive black holes are thought to reside in the center of large galaxies, including our own Milky Way.

At present a global network of high-frequency radio telescopes – the Event Horizon Telescope – is making a first attempt to image the shadow cast by their event horizon. Detailed computer simulations give us a fascinating preview of what we can expect to see. This and other efforts promise a new era in studying the nature of spacetime under the most extreme conditions.

Cold cocktails like cold black holes to take you beyond the event horizon while Albin & Mika play groovy bass and harmonic structures.

Photo: Bronzwaer / Davelaar / Moscibrodzka / Falcke / Radboud University

Event Horizon

Heino Falcke

How to see Black Holes

What is a black hole? Where do you find a really big one? How does it look? How to image a mustard seed in New York? How to build a Black Hole Camera? Why do astronomers love being on mountains?

Talk by

Heino Falcke

Professor of radio astronomy at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is member of the royal Netherlands academy for arts and science, knight in the order of the Dutch lion, and received the Spinoza price, the highest NL science award, for proposing a method to image black holes.

Heino Falcke

Music by

Albin & Mika

From the electronic scene in Malmö/Copenhagen, Albin & Mika have performed at festivals, clubs and parties all the way from Malmö to Germany. Their common interest in instrumental electronic music and analog gear lead into this collaboration full of groovy bass lines, harmonic structures, transforming beats and blinking lightbulbs.

Albin Mika