Dutch Black Hole Consortium
Welcome! We are a group of 30+ scientists, carrying out an interdisciplinary black hole research program throughout the Netherlands. In our project we will develop new telescope technologies, study the geology of the possible location for the Einstein Telescope (ET) and try to answer deep theoretical and astronomical questions about space and time. Our project is curiosity-driven and we want to share our enthusiasm with society as much as possible. Therefore we will also develop a citizen science program, a museum expo, and an educational project for schoolchildren. Please have a look around on our website!
NEWS
Many awards for our SpaceTime movie about gravitational waves!
Our movie SpaceTime, created together with animation studio BigPixel, is awarded several prizes at filmfestivals. We are of course most enthousiastic about informing such a wide public about exciting gravitational wave research and the upcoming Einstein Telescope! Have a look at the list of awards below.
Our DBHC consortium member Gerard ‘t Hooft receives Breakthrough Prize
Winning this ‘Oscars of the sciences’ is truly a great honour and comes with 3M euro. It is only awarded for scientists that made a major impact on scientific understanding worldwide. We are very proud of our DBHC member! Read more about the prize and 't Hoofts work on black holes below.
Visit to the ET Pathfinder at our 11th consortium meeting
February 6 we were again welcomed at the ET Pathfinder in Maastricht, where a smaller version of the ET telescope is in its finishing phase. Here all sorts of techniques that could be implemented in the ET can be tested. Read more about the project on the ET Pathfinder website below.
Online meet & greet with our Black Hole Finder App team!
On December 18, between 17:00-18:00 CET our team that developed the Black Hole Finder App will be available in an online Zoom meeting to answer all of your questions about the app and the science behind it. Find the zoom link in their website below to take part!
Dark energy and expansion of the universe linked to black holes
A new publication in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics shows a link between the growing amount of black holes in the universe, and the expansion of our universe via black energy. A very exciting discovery that will be discussed heavily the coming years!
First “black hole triple” discovered!
MIT and Caltech scientists have discovered two stars near a black hole. One of them is at a huge distance, which means that the black hole is affecting even distant objects and was probably created by a 'soft stellar death', which is quite peculiar!
Our cofund partner Innoseis is aiming to make its mark on the Lunar surface
After using their sensors on the surface of our earth, Innoseis Sensor Technologies’ engineers have now successfully delivered the first seismic sensor prototypes that will be used in a lunar seismic mission that will land on the Moon in 2026!
Sera Markoff installed as new KNAW member
Our consortium member Sera Markoff has been elected as a new member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Read more about it via the KNAW page below.
Black Hole Finder App update!
Thanks to the great success of our black hole finder app it is now also accessible in Spanish, German, Chinese, Bengali, Polish, and Italian - thereby greatly increasing the number of people who can access the citizen science app in their native language. Go search for black holes with us!
Our PhD Jildou Hollander about doing outreach
Explaining your work to the public is an important and sometimes underrated job amongst scientist. However, we think inspiring new generations and justifying the use of public money is of increased importance!
Teylers medal for PD Emilie Skulberg
Our postdoc Emilie Skulberg has been awarded the Teylers medal for her historical research into visual traditions in astronomy, especially in the work of the Event Horizon Telescope: how to visualise a black hole from raw data? ("seeing = believing"?)
Film "Spacetime" on screen!
Together with the opening of the Einstein Telescope Education Center (ETEC) we had a first viewing of our 3D inverted dome film "Spacetime". It will be on screen for another three years (!) in Discovery museum Kerkrade. More info below!
NWA impact workshop
We had a wonderful NWA workshop day in Leiden, to check if our project is on track and measure our societal impact trough our outreach and education programmes. Very interesting also to learn from other (biology) consortia how they approach their impact pathways.
Our magazine is out!
Together with New Scientist, Museum Boerhaave, Discovery Museum, Nikhef and the Einstein Telescope team we now have a magazine about our research at black holes and (their) gravitational waves. Meet our team members via various interviews - PDF link below!
Most massive stellar black hole in our galaxy found
Astronomers spotted the most massive stellar black hole ever seen in our Milky Way, 33 sun masses, via data from our European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. Read more below.
Our DBHC member Elena Maria Rossi wins Vici prize
Elena Maria Rossi receives a funding of 1.5M euro for her research, looking at the origins of supermassive black holes. Read more about her research below.
Opening of our museum exhibition 'Closer to the Black Hole'!
From March 21 our exhibition Closer to the Black Hole will be open for public (until January 2025). Read more about it and book tickets via the button below.
9th DBHC meeting @ museum Boerhaave, Leiden
Join our DBHC meeting in museum Boerhave, Leiden, April 5. View the timetable and register via the button below!
New photo from M87
The black hole at the center of galaxy M87 has been imaged with a higher resolution than before, thanks to an additional telescope in Greenland that extends the global EHT network
Group picture!
We made a picture at our 8th DBHC consortium-wide meeting in Nijmegen; not the whole team could be present, but at least a large part of our group. Watch a larger version of the image via the link below.
Black Hole Finder App at NPO
Stefan Vandoren gives an interview on the Dutch NPO Radio 1 show about our new black hole finder app. Watch and listen to the interview via the link below!
Search for black holes together with us!
Peter Jonker and his team launched the 'Black Hole Finder app', to search for new black holes together with the public. Read more about it and download the application via the link below.
Something that happens around black holes might be more fundamental...
Our consortium member Heino Falcke, together with Michael Wondrak and Walter van Suijlekom, gives a new perspective on Hawking radiation...
Athena Award for Monika
Our consortium member Monika Mościbrodzka (Radboud University) won another prize! This time the Athena Award for female researchers that stand out, being great role models for others
2.5 million for fast X-ray flashes
Our consortium member (and co-PI) Peter Jonker receives a major European research grant of 2.5 million euro for his research at fast X-ray flashes.
Measuring gravitational waves in space
A group of Dutch researchers working on space detector LISA have received twelve million euros. Among them is our consortium member Gijs Nelemans, astronomer at the SRON and RU. He talks about it on the radio, listen to it via the button below.
In depth articles
We now published a selection of populair science articles about recent discoveries in the field of black holes. Please read more about it via the button below. Enjoy!
Two prizes!
The British Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has individually honored our DBHC members Monika Mościbrodzka and Heino Falcke (both Radboud University) for their research into black holes.
New black hole found closest to Earth
A new black holes has been detected that is just 1500 light years away from earth...
Stefan about "The attraction of black holes"...
Read a recent NWO interview with project leader Stefan Vandoren below, and learn more about what we do and why we do it!
First picture of our 'own' black hole!
EHT made a 1st ever picture of the black hole located in the center our Milky Way...
ET gets 42 million euro's from NGF
The realization of the Einstein Telescope gets one step closer with this large contribution from the Dutch government...
Kickoff!
Watch our kickoff video of the consortium in Kerkrade on 13 September 2021 below...
Science
Our main goal is to better understand black holes. Why? Because black holes are at the edge of our current knowledge about physics. They bring together both the laws of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. But how this works exactly is still a mystery. So the black hole is where we expect to find something exciting and new... maybe even new physics!
Technology & geology
We want to study black holes using their signature found in gravitational waves. To do so, we want to develop a new type of gravitational wave detector - the Einstein Telescope (ET). The first step is an 'ET Pathfinder', a small version of the eventual ET. Also, we will need to do an extended geological study in Limburg to see if the soil is good enough to build the eventual ET on this location.
Education & public engagement
To involve the public as much as possible, we will develop an educational project for schoolchildren; a citizen science project for basically everyone in the Netherlands that likes to be involved in the project; and two museum exhibitions about black holes - one at museum Boerhaave in Leiden and one Discovery Museum in Kerkrade (Limburg).
The DBHC is made possible thanks to:
