During the corona crisis, astronomer Heino Falcke (1966) and his wife embarked on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. They want to make that hike in stages. In the book that Falcke publishes today, he compares his search for an image of black holes in the universe to a pilgrimage. The more you see of creation, the closer that will bring you to God, is His belief.
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Heino Falcke during a lecture at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, where he works as an astronomer.
(image epa / Stephanie Lecocq)–
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Is the spectacular photo of the black hole, as you took it with many colleagues worldwide and showed it to the public on April 10, 2019, the result of a childhood dream?
‘A boy’s and girl’s dream, for sure. As a four-year-old boy, I was glued to television when the Falcon / Apollo 15 landed on the moon. That was two years after the first moon landing. I saw the discoverers of something new, they entered unknown territory. With our photo of the black hole we succeeded. You look into a part of our cosmos that no one has ever seen. Such a discovery feels like science fiction. That was a dream of mine and of many scientists. Now you see a black hole in a photo, not very sharp yet, but very special. ‘
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