{"podcast":{"title":"PBS Space Time","slug":"pbs-space-time-7778773","podcast_index_feed_id":7778773,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VG4094887262","website_url":null,"image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/f982ec76-1991-11f1-8531-1763dcadb313/image/9a88c1c5ae91e65f64e0c1324090ebb9.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"PBS","episode_count":188,"summary":"Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew O’Dowd. For all business inquiries and sponsorship opportunities please reach out to: pbsspacetime@lighthouseagents.com Matt O'Dowd spends his time studying the universe, especially really far-away things like quasars, super-massive black holes, and evolving galaxies. He uses telescopes in space to do it. Matt completed his Ph.D. at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute, followed by work at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. He's now a professor at the City University of New York's Lehman College and an Associate at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium. Previous host Gabe Perez-Giz is an astrophysicist who studies black hole physics. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and also hosted PBS Infinite Series. patreon.com/pbsspacetime","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T02:17:15.545680+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773"},"episode":{"title":"First Detection of Light from Behind a Black Hole","slug":"first-detection-of-light-from-behind-a-black-hole","published_at":"2026-07-22T11:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773/first-detection-of-light-from-behind-a-black-hole","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG8944026522.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG8944026522.mp3","summary":"Thank you to Blinkist for supporting PBS. For more information and trial go to http://www.blinkist.com/PBSSpacetime How do you see the unseeable - how do you explore the inescapable? Our cleverest astronomers have figured out ways to catch light that skims the very edge of black holes. Let’s find out what they learned. A few weeks ago a story made the rounds of pop-sci media proclaiming that for the first time light had been detected from behind a black hole. The reports were about a paper that claimed to have seen X-rays that came not from inside but from the back end black hole. This is obviously cool stuff - I mean, really anything new with black holes captures the public attention. But this result is cool in ways most people aren’t aware. And it brought us closer to a goal that I’ve been personally striving towards for years - trying to understand what happens in the vicinity of the largest black holes in the universe. I thought it would be worth doing a space time journal club on the Nature paper by Wilkins, Gallo, Costantini, Brandt & Blandford so I get to talk about my favorite subject in the universe. Nature Paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03667-0 Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime #space #blackholes #astrophysics Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt O'Dowd Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, Pedro Osinski, Adriano Leal & Stephanie Faria GFX Visualizations: Ajay Manuel Directed by Andrew Kornhaber Assistant Producer: Setare Gholipour Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andre…","meta_description":"Thank you to Blinkist for supporting PBS. For more information and trial go to http://www.blinkist.com/PBSSpacetime How do you see the unseeable - how do…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1437,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/pbs-space-time-7778773/episodes/first-detection-of-light-from-behind-a-black-hole/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773/first-detection-of-light-from-behind-a-black-hole.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}