Project Grant 2535855

Federal Project Grant Summary: Frontier Science with the Event Horizon Telescope

The National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences awarded Massachusetts Institute of Technology $2.606 million under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) for one year of continued operations and advancement of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) as a frontier science facility. The award, effective October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, supports the EHT's core mission of producing the sharpest angular resolution astronomical observations available through very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) techniques. Key deliverables include operational support for the international network of submillimeter telescopes; advanced imaging and analysis algorithms; calibration information and analysis tools accessible to the broader research community; and enhanced observing capabilities enabled by newly deployed telescopes and receivers. The facility enables primary science drivers including determining the origin of relativistic jets around supermassive black holes, testing spin extraction hypotheses, understanding black hole flares, and characterizing supermassive black hole populations in galactic nuclei, with particular focus on multi-wavelength dynamical observations of the black hole in the galactic center (Sagittarius A*) and new spectral-line VLBI capabilities for submillimeter molecular studies.

MIT coordinates the EHT Collaboration's operational and research infrastructure in partnership with four sub-awardees: the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (sub-award June 8, 2026), the California Institute of Technology (sub-award March 17, 2026), the University of Arizona (sub-award January 23, 2026), and the University of Chicago (sub-award January 5, 2026, for SPT EHT receiver and optics development). The award also prioritizes workforce development and public engagement, with training for junior scientists embedded in telescope operations, data calibration, and knowledge generation, undergraduate project participation, and continued public dissemination and outreach leveraging the demonstrated public interest in EHT's black hole shadow imagery.