Today, Juli talks to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel, director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2020 together with Andrea Ghez for the discovery of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. He and his group made pioneering observations to map the motions of stars close to the Galactic centre, leading to firm evidence for the existence of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way and to an accurate estimate of its mass.
Using high-precision methods, the group around Genzel also observed bursts of brightness from gas in the immediate vicinity of the black hole and small scale effects of General Relativity.
Prof. Genzel tells fascinating stories about the decades-long efforts with which he and his colleagues managed to measure the orbits of stars around the Galactic centre so precisely that it leaves no doubt that they must orbit around a supermassive black hole.
To find out more information about Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel, check out here:
https://www.mpg.de/15493117/nobel-prize-physics-2020-genzel
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Episode Art: ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org
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