Was Einstein right?

Scientists to image event horizon of black hole

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded 14 Million Euros to a team of European astrophysicists to construct the first accurate image of a black hole. The team will test the predictions of current theories of gravity, including Einstein's theory of General Relativity, The funding is provided in the form of a “Synergy Grant”, the largest and most competitive type of grant of the ERC.

Partners in Europe
The principal investigators will closely collaborate with a number of groups throughout Europe. Team members in the ERC grant are:

• Robert Laing from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, European project scientist of ALMA, a new high-frequency radio telescope, that the team seeks to use for their purpose,
• Frank Eisenhauer from the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in Garching, principal investigator of the upcoming GRAVITY instrument for the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, to precisely measure the motion of stars and infrared flares around the Galactic Center black hole.
• Huib van Langevelde, director of the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) and Professor of Galactic radio astronomy at the University of Leiden.

The efforts of the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie will be conducted jointly with the VLBI group and the high-frequency radio astronomy groups at the institute and their directors Anton Zensus and Karl Menten. 

The scientists also want to make use of the two major European millimeter radio observatories (NOEMA and the IRAM 30m telescope) operated by IRAM, a joint German/French/Spanish radio astronomy institute.

The BlackHoleCam team will closely collaborate with the Event Horizon Telescope project, led by Shep Doeleman (MIT Haystack Observatory, Boston).

Further information

Principal Investigators:
Heino Falcke, Radboud University Nijmegen und ASTRON, Niederlande;
Michael Kramer, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn und Universität Manchester, Großbritannien;
Luciano Rezzolla, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt und Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut), Potsdam.

Project Title:
BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes (BlackHoleCam)