'Simulations and movies like these really help us visualize what Einstein meant when he said that gravity warps the fabric of space and time,' the creator of the images said.
When we look at the black hole from the side, the left of the accretion disk appears to be brighter than the right. This can be explained by a phenomenon known as"Doppler beaming" in which the apparent brightness of matter travelling close to the speed of light is modified by the effects of phenomena described by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
In the center of the visualization is an area devoid of light known as the"black hole shadow," which is about twice the size of the event horizon—the boundary beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape due the extreme gravitational pull. Finally, around the center of the black hole lies the"photon ring"—which looks nearly circular and identical from any viewing angle in the visualization. This feature is composed of multiple distorted images of the disk. In fact, the light that makes up these images may have orbited the black hole several times before escaping and becoming visible to us.
"Until very recently, these visualizations were limited to our imagination and computer programs. I never thought that it would be possible to see a real black hole," he said.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
NASA is set to tear down the 1969 moon landing labThe building was constructed as a facility to quarantine astronauts and the material they brought back from the moon during the Apollo program.
Read more »
NASA says 2019 Arctic sea ice minimum ties for second lowest on record: 'There is no sign that the sea ice cover is rebounding'Satellite data shows sea ice on September 18 covered just 1.6 million square miles.
Read more »
The extreme and warped reality of black holesA new visual depiction of a black hole's impressive gravity by NASA reveals its warping of space and time. Now, there's an edgewise view of a black hole that almost doesn't seem possible
Read more »
NASA's planet hunter spots black hole shredding a starSince NASA's TESS satellite launched in April 2018, it's been identifying exoplanets and carrying on the planet-hunter legacy of the concluded Kepler mission. In order to find exoplanets, TESS is surveying stars -- and that's how it found the aftermath of a violent encounter.
Read more »
These three black holes are going to crash into each otherFor the first time, astronomers have observed a triple collision of galaxies, which have sent their black holes on a collision course, according to a new study
Read more »