Andrew Strominger

We present the motivation and vision for the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a mission that will extend submillimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to space. BHEX, currently under formulation for a NASA Small Explorer mission, will discover and measure the bright and narrow “photon ring” that is predicted to exist in images of black holes, will reveal the processes that drive supermassive black hole creation and growth, and will connect supermassive black holes to their relativistic jets.

Black holes stand at the limit of what we can know. The Event Horizon Telescope links observatories across the world to simulate an earth-sized telescope. With this tool the team pursues the first-ever picture of a black hole, resulting in an image seen by billions of people in April 2019. Meanwhile, Hawking and his team attack the black hole paradox at the heart of theoretical physics—Do predictive laws still function, even in these massive distortions of space and time? Weaving them together is a third strand, philosophical and exploratory using expressive animation. “Edge” is about practicing science at the highest level, a film where observation, theory, and philosophy combine to grasp these most mysterious objects.