He studies the role of super massive black holes and jets in glaxies, and accretion physics through theoretical, observational and experimental astronomy. Combining these fields, he wants to test General Relativity and alternative theories in the most extreme strong field limit.

In 2000, Falcke coined the term ‘shadow of the black hole’ for the effect of light bending around the event horizon. Later, Falcke launched the idea of a network of radio telescopes around the world to answer these questions. This became the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), of which Heino Falcke became chair of the science council. In 2013, Falcke, Kramer and Rezzolla secured a Synergy Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for ‘BlackHoleCam’: to provide the required instrumentation, organize the effort required to process the data and the accompanying numerical simulations.