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Advancing Our Understanding of Black Holes and Their Surroundings

Professor Jongho Park at the Department of Astronomy & Space Science has been named the recipient of the 2024 Young Astronomer Award, presented by the Korean Astronomical Society. This award recognizes outstanding academic achievements by researchers under 40. Adding to this milestone, Professor Park was also selected for the 2025 POSCO Science Fellowship, a program that supports approximately 30 scientists annually in basic and applied sciences, fostering their growth into global leaders in research. “I am deeply honored to receive such a meaningful recognition. This award motivates me to continue pushing the boundaries of my work,” said Professor Park.

Professor Park’s research centers on the black hole at the heart of our galaxy and the mysterious region surrounding it. Technological advancements in interferometry and international collaboration have recently enabled the capture of images from these enigmatic regions at the periphery of the black hole, overcoming past limitations. His team has been instrumental in visualizing these unprecedented images. In January 2024, their work uncovered how turbulence in plasma near a black hole creates fluctuations in the brightness of its ring structure.

Black hole research is a collaborative effort that transcends borders, requiring teams of scientists to overcome the technical constraints of radio telescope observations. Professor Park is part of a global project involving more than 400 researchers from 20 countries, bringing together expertise across disciplines, from observational instrumentation to black hole physics. Reflecting on the experience, Professor Park shared: “We hold weekly virtual meetings with researchers from diverse cultural backgrounds. While navigating these differences can be challenging at times, the collaboration has been incredibly productive and rewarding.” His significant contributions to the field earned him Young Scientist Awards in both 2021 and 2024.

Professor Park is now preparing to launch two ambitious follow-up studies. The first focuses on capturing black hole surroundings across multiple wavelengths to analyze plasma properties and spacetime distortions. “Until now, black hole images have been captured at single wavelength, showing just one color. By combining images from multiple wavelengths, we hope to reveal how black holes appear in various colors,” he explained. This multi-wavelength approach will provide deeper insights into the physical properties of the matter surrounding black holes, an area that remains largely uncharted.

The second project seeks to document the temporal evolution of black holes. Professor Park explained: “We’ve observed that plasma around black holes rotates rapidly, leading to significant changes in its shape over time. Our goal is to move beyond static images and visualize a sequence of how black holes rotate and how this impacts the surrounding plasma. This will culminate in the creation of the first-ever video of the rotational aspect of a black hole, offering an unprecedented view of its changes over time.”