organisation

Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research

MIT research institute for astrophysics and space research

Science · From echoes to Images: MIT professor maps black holes with Light

At MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Professor Erin Kara is advancing the technique of X-ray reverberation mapping to study supermassive black holes. By measuring the echoes produced when X-rays from a black hole’s corona bounce off the surrounding accretion disk, her team is reconstructing the environment immediately outside the event horizon and learning how black holes grow.