---
title: Black Holes & Gravitational Waves
description: This topic explores the physics of extreme gravity and spacetime. Learners will understand how black holes form, how they affect their surroundings, and how scientists detect gravitational waves to study cosmic collisions.
category: sciences
subcategory: astronomy-and-astrophysics
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/black-holes-and-gravitational-waves
---

# Black Holes & Gravitational Waves

This topic explores the physics of extreme gravity and spacetime. Learners will understand how black holes form, how they affect their surroundings, and how scientists detect gravitational waves to study cosmic collisions.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Courses • 3 Websites

## Websites

### 1. Event Horizon Telescope

Official site of the global VLBI array that produced the first images of the M87 and Sagittarius A* black holes. Carries press releases, published results, telescope details, and data releases from the collaboration.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

**Tags:** black-holes, event-horizon-telescope, radio-astronomy, astrophysics, interferometry

### 2. blackholes.org

Blackholes.org is an educational resource that explains black holes and gravitational waves in accessible language, featuring diagrams, tutorials, and articles on concepts like event horizons, accretion disks, and recent discoveries in the field.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://blackholes.org

**Tags:** websites, science-research, astronomy--space

### 3. gwcenter.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp

The Gravitational Wave Center at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Cosmic Ray Research offers educational resources and up-to-date information on gravitational waves and black holes. It features explanations of detectors (like KAGRA), lectures and seminars, research news, and data/outreach materials.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://gwcenter.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp

**Tags:** websites, science-research, astronomy--space

## Courses

### 1. Black Holes

University of Alberta's introductory astronomy course, using black holes as the through-line for light, gravity, relativity, quantum physics, and stellar evolution. Finishing it, you can explain event horizons, Hawking radiation, and gravitational lensing in plain language.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/black-holes-astro-101

**Tags:** courses, science-research, astronomy--space

## Books

### 1. Gravity's Fatal Attraction

**Author:** Mitchell Begelman, Martin Rees

Non-technical account of black hole astrophysics by two working theorists, covering stellar-mass and supermassive holes, accretion discs, jets, and quasars. Readers come away understanding the observational evidence astronomers use to infer black holes exist.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0716750740?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, science-research, astronomy--space

### 2. Gravitational Waves

**Author:** Michele Maggiore

Graduate-level second volume of Maggiore's treatise, treating gravitational-wave sources: compact binary coalescence, supernovae, pulsars, and stochastic cosmological backgrounds. Requires general relativity and field theory; prepares readers to follow LIGO-Virgo detection papers and source-modelling literature.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198570899?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, science-research, astronomy--space

---

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