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Dinsdag 7 januari 2020
Dr. Ciriaco Goddi (Radboud University Nijmegen / Leiden Observatory)
The Event Horizon Telescope and the first image of a black hole
N.B. deze lezing is in het Engels.
The Event Horizon Telescope Consortium has recently published the first image of a black hole, lurking at the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. This long-sought image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity.
In the talk, I will describe the context, the meaning and behind the scenes of one of the biggest discovery of the year.
Ciriaco Goddi was born in Nuoro in the island of Sardinia in Italy and
after graduating in Physics in 2000 at the University of Cagliari he obtains a
PhD in Astrophysics in 2005 at the same university. In 2006 he is offered a
three-years postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for
Astrophysics.
In 2009 he is selected for a three-years postdoctoral
fellowship program at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Munich,
Germany, where he starts working for the ALMA telescope in Chile. In 2012, at
the conclusion of the project, he accepts the offer of JIVE (Joint Institute for
VLBI in Europe) in the Netherlands, that manages a network of radiotelescopes
located in three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.
After two years, he accepts a new challenge, and in 2014 he takes upon the role of Project Scientist of BlackHoleCam (BHC), funded by the European Research Council, and main European partner of the Event collaboration Horizon Telescope (EHT). Since 2014, he has a shared position between the Radboud University Nijmegen and the Leiden Observatory, working for the BHC project and the ALMA telescope. Within the EHT collaboration, he is also the secretary of the Scientific Council.
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