From Mica
Observational Evidence for Black Holes
a talk by Rob Knop of Quest University
Black holes are a theoretical prediction of Einstein’s Relativity. But do they really exist? The answer is a nuanced “yes.” We have observational evidence for two sorts of black holes. In our Galaxy, we observe black holes that are several times the mass of the Sun. At the core of almost every big Galaxy, we find a supermassive black hole that’s a million or more times the mass of the Sun. In this talk, I’ll give an overview of the evidence that these objects are in fact black holes. I’ll also point out that the observational definition of “black hole”, meaning those things that we know exist, isn’t exactly the same as the definition of the objects predicted by Relativity, although most astronomers suspect and assume that what we observe are in fact the things that Relativity predicts.
Media
Slides
Audio recording