Black Holes
     Large and Small

The Plan

Black holes are at the frontier of current astrophysical knowledge.

The “Dark Star”

Trajectory of Light Rays Near a Massive, Collapsing Star …

The Birth of a Black Hole: Creation and Growth of the Event Horizon

Black Hole = Very “Warped” Space-Time

Implosion of a Star to Form a Black Hole

Visualizing a black hole’s distortion of space-time using an “embedding” diagram.

The “Warpage” of Time

“Frame Dragging”

Effect of black hole rotation on the event horizon.

The Pencil-Thin Astronaut

Distortion of background light by the black hole: “gravitational lensing”

The view of the background star field as we now orbit around a black hole….

A normal view of the Smithsonian Institution building in Washington.

What happens if we put a “small” black hole in front of it!

Gravitional lensing by a massive cluster of galaxies: lensing really does happen!

Evolution of stars as a function of their mass…

The interior structure of a massive star.

What happens when the core of a star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses?

A better view
  of Chandrasekhar …

Useful numbers to remember!

Black Holes aren’t really black…

Gravitational Waves

“Laser Interferometry Gravitational Observatory”

LISA – A space-based version of LIGO.

The Keck Observatory

The Hubble Space Telescope

The Very Large Array (VLA) Radio Telescope

Synchrotron radiation by an electron gyrating in a magnetic field.

Temperature and the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Bremsstrahlung Radiation

Optical Eyes vs. X-Ray Eyes…

Emission Lines

“Inverse” Compton Radiation

The ROSAT X-ray Satellite

The First Galactic Black Hole: Cygnus X-1

A Galactic Black Hole Accreting from It’s Binary Star Companion

Another View of a Black Hole Accreting Gas from a Star

How To Tell if a Binary Star System
Contains a Black Hole?

Rapid X-Ray Variability
in GRS 1915+105

Really Massive Black Holes

Massive Black Holes Everywhere!

Some Hubble Telescope Close-Ups of Quasars

The Antennae Galaxies: A Nearby Merger Event

The Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy Arp 220

Peering into the monster …

Another nearby monster…

Slide 50

Emission-Line Evidence for a Massive Black Hole

Maser Evidence for a Massive Black Hole

The Monster at the Center of our Galaxy?

      An optical view of our monster …

The Galactic Center: A Wimp Compared to Other Massive Black Holes

Some other pictures you might find interesting…

Ionization cone from a nearby obscured AGN (in the Circinus galaxy)

Slide 58

The newly launched Chandra satellite
                          – the X-ray analog of HST

Slide 60

Chandra Image of a Supernova Remnant

Chandra vs. ROSAT

Slide 63

Slide 64

Slide 65

Slide 66

Slide 67

Slide 68

Slide 69

Slide 70

Slide 71

Slide 72

Slide 73

Slide 74

Slide 75

Jets!!

Slide 77

Slide 78

Slide 79

Slide 80

Slide 81

Slide 82

Slide 83

Slide 84

Slide 85

Slide 86

Slide 87

Slide 88

The Gamma-Ray Sky

Slide 90

TeV Blazars

Slide 92

Slide 93

Slide 94