Black hole discovery celebrated in special stamp set

A black hole simulation by UCL scientist Dr Ziri Younsi was revealed today in a special stamp collection and coin cover by Royal Mail to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Dr Younsi is part of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration team who successfully captured the image of a black hole in a world first last year. He used computer models from his research to inform the design of the stamp illustration, which was created by artist Robert Ball. "It's been a pleasure working with Robert Ball and Royal Mail to translate my research into a vibrant and dynamic first class stamp. Although they are relatively simple cosmic objects, supermassive black holes are also extraordinary, having enormous masses yet extremely compact sizes. They dramatically affect their environments by warping spacetime and super-heating any surrounding material. What you see here is the electromagnetic radiation produced by a disc of super-heated material around a spinning supermassive black hole," explained Dr Younsi (UCL Space & Climate Physics).