NSSL STEM Talk #4: Black Holes -- things we know and things we don't
Channel: North Shore Science League
Date: 2021-03-24

Abstract: In this talk, I'll present three (of many) things astronomers know about black holes: (1) Most (maybe all) galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center. (2) A black hole is formed when a massive star dies. (3) Two black holes can merge together to form a bigger black hole. My goals are to explain how we know these things and to highlight some of the many puzzling things we don't know about black holes along the way.

Bio: Greg Salvesen graduated from Andover High School in 2005. Inspired by his high school physics teacher, Greg studied astronomy in college (University of Michigan) and graduate school (University of Colorado at Boulder), specializing in black holes. After a postdoc stint (University of California at Santa Barbara), Greg recently started his first "real job" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he continues his research on black holes and is beginning to dabble in high-energy-density plasma physics. For fun, Greg likes to run and skateboard.