Cocktails and Ideas: "Black Holes Big and Small"

Something new in SLC ✨ Interesting ideas, shared monthly by professors & experts in bars. 📚 Lecture Topic: Black Holes Big and Small: Hunting the Dark Hearts of Galaxies 🎤 Speaker: Dr. Anil Seth Join us for a one-of-a-kind night out—cocktails, great conversation, and the chance to meet new people. Black holes come in a huge range of sizes, from collapsed stars just a few times the mass of our Sun to giants billions of times more massive at the hearts of galaxies. Most large galaxies, including our own Milky Way, harbor a massive black hole at their center. But what about smaller galaxies? Do they have black holes, too? And what can these hidden objects reveal about how galaxies themselves came to be? University of Utah astronomer Dr. Anil Seth is searching for answers using powerful ground-based telescopes, along with the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes. He and his collaborators have detected black holes in nearby galaxies, including some of the smallest central black holes ever found. One lies at the heart of Omega Centauri, a star cluster visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere and believed to be the remnant core of a small galaxy swallowed by the Milky Way. It has been the subject of more than a decade of debate among astronomers. Could it be the “missing link” in our understanding of black holes, an object some weren’t even sure existed? In this talk, Seth takes us on a journey through the cosmos, exploring some of the universe’s most mysterious objects and what they can reveal about the origins of galaxies. Bring a friend or come solo! Get a drink, meet new people, and learn something new 🍸