Grant to build new telescope in Africa to enable colour movies of black holes

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Synergy Grant, named BlackHolistic, of 14 million Euro to a team of British, Dutch, Finnish and Namibian astronomers to make colour movies of black holes. To do this, they will build the first ever African millimetre-wave radio telescope in Namibia. The new telescope will be part of the global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) network that became famous for making the first image of a black hole and the new grant will help to transform the network from making still images to making movies – enhancing our understanding of black holes across the entire Universe.

Professor Rob Fender, Head of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics is one of the three principal investigators (PIs) named on the grant. Over the course of six years, Professor Fender along with fellow PIs Professor Heino Falcke from Radboud University and Professor Sera Markoff from the University of Amsterdam will conduct research on black holes from different perspectives.

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