AstroEvent mit Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer: Ein Summen der Raumzeit

Lecture and observation of the sky in the Engadine, where the Milky Way is still visible to the naked eye.

Pulsars are the natural beacons of space. They are rapidly rotating neutron stars that regularly emit radio radiation. This extraordinary precision makes them ideal test objects for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Every mass distorts the space-time around it through its gravity. If it moves evenly, this distortion remains largely stable. Only when masses move at an accelerated rate, for example when two black holes orbit each other and finally merge, does space-time itself start to move. This produces gravitational waves that propagate through the cosmos as gentle stretching and compression.

But how can such extremely weak waves be detected? This is exactly where pulsars come into play, which serve as natural detectors in space. Their observation leads to a startling result, a buzzing sound of space-time, produced by countless merging black holes in the early universe.

How exactly this works and what this buzzing sound tells us about our universe, you will learn in the lecture. Immerse yourself in Einstein's universe and the fascinating world of pulsars.

About Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer
Michael Kramer was born in Cologne and studied physics in Cologne and Bonn, where he received his doctorate in 1995. He was an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and an Otto Hahn Fellow at the University of California in Berkeley. He then became a professor at the University of Manchester. Since 2009, he has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn. He was president of the Astronomical Society and received several awards for his research on neutron stars, black holes and gravitational waves.