1.
Speaker: Prof. Tuomas Savolainen 1)Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Aalto
University, Finland;
2) Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, Aalto University,
Finland
2. Topic: The quest for the highest angular resolution in astronomy
3. Date/time: 2023 Aug-30 / 1530-1700 (KST)
4. Place: Online (※ A Zoom address will be sent to your email and mobile
number before the lecture begins.)
5. Abstract
Very Long Baseline Interferometry
(VLBI) is a technique to combine radio telescopes separated by thousands of
kilometers into an instrument that has the angular resolution of a telescope of
the size of the Earth. For decades, VLBI has delivered to the scientific
community the sharpest images of relativistic jets that are launched by
supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. However, in order to
understand how these jets are launched, we need to be able to resolve them in
the spatial scales that are mostly beyond the reach of the ground-based
cm-wavelength VLBI. There are two ways to further increase the resolution of
the VLBI observations - either
observe at shorter wavelengths or increase the baseline length by putting a
radio telescope in space. I will share some exciting results from both of these
approaches that include observations with the Event Horizon Telescope at
mm-wavelengths and with the RadioAstron space-VLBI mission. I will also share
some experiences about designing experiments with new facilities.
