In its last meeting, the Board of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) elected Prof. Anton Zensus its Chairman. The EHT is an international collaboration aiming at creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope with unprecedented angular resolution. “Our goal is to test some of the key predictions of Einstein’s General Relativity by imaging the immediate vicinity of a Black Hole ” explains Zensus, who is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, and for the second time in succession the Coordinator of RadioNet.
First observations of the supermassive objects in the centre of our own Milky Way and in the heart of the galaxy M87 have been successfully performed in April 2017. These are now being calibrated and interpreted. “One of my main duties as Board Chair is to ensure that the resources and efforts of the EHT collaboration are focused in the best possible way to make this project a success”, explains Zensus, “I am proud that the EHT board entrusted me with this responsible and delicate task.”