Black Holes and Einstein’s Gravity

Do you know high school students who have wondered about black holes and what makes them among the most mysterious objects in the universe? Or what the fate is of something orbiting around the black hole? If they have wondered, they’re not alone! For years scientists have been trying to answer questions about black holes.

 

Please join us at our upcoming Teen Astronomy Café, “Black Holes and Einstein’s Gravity” with Dr. Pierre Christian (University of Arizona), to learn more about this very interesting topic.

Dr. Pierre Christian

Black Holes and Einstein’s Gravity

Pierre Christian is an Assistant Professor at Fairfield University, in Connecticut. Previously, he earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he worked on black hole astrophysics and was a postdoc at the University of Arizona, where he was the Steward Prize fellow in theoretical and computational astrophysics. At UA, he used black holes to study gravitational physics. He is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, a worldwide scientific effort to take resolved images of black holes.

Café Activity Description: The mathematical equations describing orbital motion are often too complicated to be solved with a pen and paper. In this activity, you will learn how professional astronomers use computers to solve for the orbit around a black hole. At the same time, you will learn more about the differences between Newtonian gravity that you learned in high school and Einstein’s gravitational theory of General Relativity.