Public Lecture: Inward Bound: Discovering and Exploring the Milky Way's Black Hole

The center of the Milky Way, like most galaxies, hosts a black hole millions of times more massive than the Sun. The circumstantial evidence for this exotic object has been growing steadily over the last several decades. New telescopes and techniques are now probing the behavior of gas and stars closer and closer to the black hole, and soon we expect to have the first image of its event horizon to go along with the recent image released by Event Horizon Telescope. This lecture and panel will discuss what we know about the Milky Way’s black hole, how we know it, and what we hope to learn in the next few years.

Lecture By:

Scott Tremaine, Richard Black Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Panel to Include:

Tim de Zeeuw, Former Director General, European Southern Observatory; SNS Member 1984-1989

Elena Murchikova, SNS Bezos Member 2018-2021

Dimitrios Psaltis, Project Scientist, Event Horizon Telescope; SNS Member 2001-2003