How to See A Black Hole October 22, 2010

Over the past 16 years, dozens of celestial objects have been positively identified as black holes. Because the primary characteristic of a black hole is that it emits no observable radiation of any kind, it is paradoxical that we can observe them at all. Charles Bailyn, the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Yale and winner of the Rossi Prize from the American Astronomical Society for research on this topic, will describe how black holes can in fact be studied and what we know about these enigmatic objects.