Papers to be presented:

Lisa Drummond (faculty advisor: Scott Hughes): H-Y Chen and K. Chatziioannou, Distinguishing binary neutron star from neutron star-black hole mergers with gravitational waves

Alan Levine: “A Short Discussion of the Workings of the Gaia Mission”

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The following event was brought to our attention:

Photographing a black hole: Special guest panel

Friday, April 12, 2019 at 1:00pm to 2:00pm

MIT Building E15, 070 (Bartos Theater) at 20 AMES ST

Michael Johnson, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Lindy Blackburn, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Vincent Fish, MIT Haystack Observatory

Black holes are believed to lie at the centers of galaxies, with masses of millions to billions times that of Earth’s sun shrouded behind an event horizon. While their gravitational pull is so strong that even photons cannot escape, they are predicted to cast a circular “shadow” upon bright emission from nearby material, which is heated to billions of degrees.

On April 12, members of the Event Horizon Telescope team from MIT and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will be at the Media Lab to discuss the first black hole image taken by the Event Horizon Telescope.

This talk is free and open to the public, and will be livestreamed.