Abstract Details

Name: Eduardo Ros
Affiliation: MPI für Radioastronomie
Conference ID: ASI2020_470
Title : The Event Horizon Telescope: Seeing the invisible
Authors and Co-Authors : Eduardo Ros, on behalf of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
Abstract Type : Invited
Abstract Category : Special Session
Abstract : Resolving the event horizon of active galactic nuclei has become possible by observations of the nearest supermassive black holes with very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) at the shortest possible radio wavelengths. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international collaboration, has presented the first results from the observational campaign performed with global observations in April 2017. Our findings show the expected ring emission formed by the photon orbit of a black hole in the galaxy Messier 87. The resulting image, at resolutions of a few tens of microarcseconds, shows a bright ring with irregular, enhanced emission to the South due to relativistic beaming of the matter approaching on its clockwise rotation into the gravity well of 6.5 billion solar masses. In my talk I will report on these results and give a short preview of the future directions of the EHT collaboration.