Friday, June 10, 2016

Lecture & Stargazing: Black Holes Don't Suck


During tonight's lecture, Chiara Mingarelli taught us all about black holes: why they are black, how they interact with their environments, and the various ways astronomers can detect them.  Importantly, she broke down the common misconception of black holes acting as vacuum cleaners, and conclusively demonstrated that black holes *don't* suck, they just act like any other concentration of mass.

Photo credit for all images: Christophe Marcade


After the lecture, we had some stargazing with the telescopes outside.  Despite the somewhat patchy clouds present, we were still able to see many of the planetary highlights in the sky, including Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon.




We also had a Q&A panel from some of our resident experts on a variety of topics including supernovae, exoplanets, gravitational waves, and galaxies.  There were a host of questions regarding cosmology and gravitational waves, but we had some good discussions on subject spanning all of astrophysics and space exploration.  



If you wish to see a recording of the lecture and subsequent Q&A panel, you can view them here.  Thanks to the hundred or so people who turned up!

--Cameron






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