The Power of Extremely Long Baseline Interferometry with Origins

Operating 1.5×10⁶ km from Earth at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrangian point, the Origins Space Telescope, equipped with a slightly modified version of its HERO heterodyne instrument, could function as a uniquely valuable node in a VLBI network. The unprecedented angular resolution resulting from the combination of Origins with existing ground-based submillimeter/millimeter telescope arrays would increase the number of spatially resolvable black holes by a factor of 10⁶, permit the study of these black holes across all cosmic history, and enable new tests of General Relativity by unveiling the photon ring substructure in the nearest black holes.

We thank NASA HQ, GSFC, JPL, and NASA-Ames for their support of the study. We thank NASA Headquarters, GSFC, Caltech/JPL, Ames, IPAC , STScI and industry partners Ball Aerospace, Northrop-Grumman, Harris, and Lockheed-Martin for their generous support of the Origins study. To learn more about Origins see our websites (https://origins.ipac.caltech.edu and https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/firs/) and report (https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/firs/docs/OriginsVolume1MissionConceptStudyReport.pdf).