Black Hole Initiative - Harvard University

Black Hole Initiative - Harvard University The first worldwide center to focus on the study of black holes.

Our Colloquium and Foundation Seminar series returns September 21st, and everyone is welcome to join us live on Zoom.All...
09/04/2026

Our Colloquium and Foundation Seminar series returns September 21st, and everyone is welcome to join us live on Zoom.

All you need to do is register once using the link in our bio. After that, you’ll receive email reminders before each seminar starts. No need to register again each week. Just sign up once and you’re all set.

Watch this space each week for speaker announcements.

See you on Zoom. We’ve got a lot to talk about!

https://bit.ly/4h7apHP
https://bit.ly/46FEet2

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.Next up...
09/03/2026

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.

Next up: our friends at the Event Horizon Telescope. The EHT Collaboration released this image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, in polarized light in March 22, 2024.

#430100 #160000

Telescope Magazine

https://bit.ly/4wZDB8tShe has launched and is currently cruising toward her new home, 1 million miles from Earth, where ...
09/02/2026

https://bit.ly/4wZDB8t

She has launched and is currently cruising toward her new home, 1 million miles from Earth, where she’ll spend the next few months testing and calibrating her equipment.

We’re crossing our fingers that one day she might swing by a black hole and that we might get to say hello. It’s a longshot, but you never know.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has announced the four inaugural recipients of the SAO Advisory Board Prize in...
09/01/2026

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has announced the four inaugural recipients of the SAO Advisory Board Prize in honor of Charles Alcock, former Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The prize recognizes outstanding early-career achievement in astronomy, astrophysics, and related engineering.

Featured here are two of the recipients: BHI affiliates Sara Issaoun and Hannah Rana. Congratulations!

https://bit.ly/4iHsIoh

Sara Issaoun
Black Hole Initiative
Research Affiliate

For significant contributions to advancements in near-horizon supermassive black hole science and millimeter VLBI calibration, analysis, and imaging techniques, including the leadership of major results from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration and coordination of multi-frequency expansion instrumentation efforts.

Hannah Rana
Black Hole Initiative
BHEX Postdoctoral Fellow

For her research in the development of space instrumentation needed to capture the sharpest images of black holes at the event horizon scale with the Black Hole Explorer space mission.

Every year at the BHI, we celebrate the people who have helped shape our community before they begin exciting new chapte...
08/28/2026

Every year at the BHI, we celebrate the people who have helped shape our community before they begin exciting new chapters in their careers. Today, we recognize Hyerin Cho as she completes her graduate studies at the BHI.

During her PhD, Hyerin worked with BHI PI Ramesh Narayan to understand how black holes shape the Universe. Her research developed new computational methods and general relativistic simulations that connect the physics at a black hole’s event horizon to the evolution of entire galaxies, advancing our understanding of black hole accretion and feedback across vast cosmic scales. To cap it all off, she received the 2026 ITC Keto Prize, awarded each year for the best thesis in theoretical astrophysics by a student at the CfA, as selected by the Senior Members of the ITC.

Hyerin was always one of the first people in the office in the morning, and her cheerful laugh was often one of the first things you would hear when you arrived. A yogi and a dancer as well as a dedicated researcher, it is hard to imagine how she managed to fit it all in!

Hyerin is heading to Korea for a summer break with family and friends before beginning her postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech and the University of Toronto.

We’ll miss having Hyerin at the BHI and wish her all the best as she begins this exciting next chapter. We can’t wait to see what’s next!

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.Next up...
08/27/2026

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.

Next up: We have never been able to observe the collision of two black holes, but in 2018, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center simulated two supermassive black holes spiraling toward a collision.

https://bit.ly/3SW53WM



BHI visiting scholar Delilah Gates, BHI graduate student alum Dominic Chang and BHI fellow Daniel Palumbo have recently ...
08/27/2026

BHI visiting scholar Delilah Gates, BHI graduate student alum Dominic Chang and BHI fellow Daniel Palumbo have recently published a new paper.

https://bit.ly/4wW1dei

Photon Ring Astrometry. I. A Simple Spin Measurement Technique for High-resolution Images of M87*

Publication: The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 1007, Issue 1
Publication Date: August 2026
Authors: Delilah E.A. Gates, Dominic O. Chang, Aaron Held and Daniel C.M. Palumbo

The supermassive black hole M87* is a target for future horizon-scale imaging that will resolve the first lensed (n = 1) subimage of the photon ring. In this work, we identify a concrete observable—the displacement between the centers of the n = 1 photon ring subimage and the direct image. Assuming that the observed large-scale jet of M87 is aligned with the black hole spin axis, we separate the relative position of the photon ring into components parallel and transverse to the projected spin axis. We show that the parallel shift is primarily determined by inclination and emission radius, while the transverse shift is tightly correlated with inclination and spin. We demonstrate these effects both in a simple geometric model (to explain the underlying physics) and in general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations with magnetically arrested disks (to provide realistic instantiations). We find that a relative astrometric resolution of ≲ 0.1 μas, achievable by the proposed Black Hole Explorer mission, is sufficient to constrain the spin to better than 9% if the accretion flow is prograde, 25% if the flow is retrograde, or 24% if the direction of the flow is undetermined. More generally, this identifies photon ring astrometry as a promising method to constrain the underlying spacetime geometry without relying on geometric modeling of the observed emission.

Transitions at the BHI do not always mean goodbyes. Today, we celebrate Daniel Palumbo as he completes his fellowship af...
08/24/2026

Transitions at the BHI do not always mean goodbyes. Today, we celebrate Daniel Palumbo as he completes his fellowship after seven years as part of the BHI community, first as a graduate student and then as a fellow. Though his fellowship is ending, we are happy to say this is not a true farewell. Daniel will soon begin a Clay Fellowship at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and plans to pop into the BHI every now and then.

During his time at the BHI, Daniel developed the photon ring science of the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope and Black Hole Explorer, while also coordinating the internship programs of both projects. Many of the summer interns we have introduced over the past few weeks have Daniel to thank for helping make those programs possible. He also led outreach efforts for the ngEHT, BHEX, and the BHI at conferences such as AAS and local events like Cambridge Explores the Universe.

Daniel has been part of the fabric of the BHI in many other ways as well. He is a familiar voice at our annual conference, calling everyone back into the room after breaks, and around the office, you could often find him with a cup of Constant Comfort tea in hand.

After seven years, it is hard to imagine the BHI without Daniel, but fortunately, we will still be seeing him around. We wish him all the best as he begins his Clay Fellowship at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.Next up...
08/20/2026

Looking for some color inspo? You don’t have to look any further than the colors of a black hole throughout time.

Next up: Interstellar. Released in 2014, the film's black hole, Gargantua, was created using scientific simulations developed with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.

#535578 #040610

BHI alum Fabio Pacucci is featured in a new NASA Chandra release exploring the mysterious “little red dots” discovered b...
08/19/2026

BHI alum Fabio Pacucci is featured in a new NASA Chandra release exploring the mysterious “little red dots” discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Researchers studied a nearby example called the “Saguaro” galaxy, finding evidence that these objects may represent a phase in the evolution of actively growing supermassive black holes.

https://bit.ly/4ijtkjH

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