Taking the world's first black hole photos with Event Horizon & more | New Frontiers, Ep. 4

Host Erika Hamden checks in with the Event Horizon Project, which brought us the first-ever images of black holes; visits the Wyant College of Optical Sciences to discover the latest developments in virtual reality technology; learns about how researchers are using robotics and augmented reality technologies to make educational tools that allow visually-impaired students to grasp engineering concepts.
0:48 Event Horizon
The Event Horizon Telescope is a worldwide collaboration of radio telescopes that wowed the world in 2019 by taking the first images ever captured of a black hole. The monumental undertaking was spearheaded at the University of Arizona, which operates 3 of the telescopes in the array… one on Mt. Graham, one on Kitt Peak, and even one at the South Pole. After that first image was released, the project set its sights on a much more personal target: the supermassive black hole suspected to reside at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way - called Sagittarius A star. And in May of 2022, the team officially released that much-anticipated image in an internationally-broadcasted press conference. The two images together provide the most precise tests yet for our theories of physics, and give tangible proof for black holes, the mysterious space anomalies once thought to be invisible.
14:16 Seeing in the Future
For decades, Hong Hua has been a pioneer in the development of advanced 3-D display systems for virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. Today, she is leading a group of graduate students at the 3-D Visualization and Imaging Systems Lab that she founded at the University of Arizona’s Wyant College of Optical Sciences, working on the next generation of these wearable displays that are sure to forever alter how we see in the future.
20:18 Engineering By Touch
Traditionally, it’s been difficult for visually-impaired students to learn about aerospace engineering because understanding the mechanics of machine parts often requires being able to see how they move. But Dr. Kavan Hazeli, Associate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona, hopes to change that. He is using cutting-edge robotics, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality technologies to develop advanced educational tools that rely more on touch and sound. Together with roboticist and former pupil Sahand Sabet, Hazeli is testing prototypes of these educational tools with students from the Arizona State School of the Deaf and the Blind.