Luis Felipe Rodríguez 20/10/2009

UNAM, Morelia, México
Madrid, 20 de octubre de 2009 Black holes are one of the most remarkable predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity and are the subject of intensive astronomical study. The microquasars are systems of two stars, one of which has become a black hole, that mimic in small scale the phenomena seen in supermassive black holes. Apparently, all active black holes share characteristics such as the presence of a surrounding, luminous accretion disk and the production of collimated jets that move at velocities close to that of light. I will describe the recent advances in our understanding of microquasars and how we can study in them changes that take place in scales of minutes and that in the supermassive black holes take years or decades.