It turns out that the view would remain bright and clear, says Feryal Ozel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona who helped produce the simulations. To envision exactly what the black hole's shadow would look like, researchers created some of the most accurate computer simulations yet that incorporate all the physics of the gas and gravity around the black hole. Some researchers worried that some of the gas, dust, and charged particles spewing out of the disc might obscure this dramatic image. So while you can't see the black hole directly, you'd see its shadow, surrounded by a bright ring and crescent. If you're looking at the black hole such that the disc is somewhat edge-on, the part of the disc that's moving toward you will glow much brighter, producing a bright crescent on that side of the black hole. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, a light source will appear brighter if it's hurtling toward you. Meanwhile, the inner part of the disc of material swirls around the black hole at speeds approaching that of light. Some of those photons manage to escape and reach your eyes (or telescope), and what you'd see is a bright ring bordering the shadow.
But near a black hole, the powerful gravity tugs on photons, swinging them around the hole into orbits. Normally, we think of light travelling in straight beams – photons zooming inexorably forward. The gravity warps the image of the shadow itself, making it appear about five times bigger than the black hole. But, you can see how the black hole's gravity bends and warps rays of light around it, creating a visual imprint in the surrounding material called the black hole's shadow. As for the black hole itself, you wouldn't be able to see it directly, as it's enshrouded in gas and dust. As the material gets consumed, friction heats it up to billions of degrees, producing lots of radiation, and outflows of energy and charged particles. The black hole's gravity has gathered lots of gas and dust, which has accumulated into a disc that's spiralling into the hole – circling the drain, so to speak.
#A JOURNEY INTO A BLACK HOLE ZIP#
And if it's spinning – which is likely, as most things in the universe rotate to some degree – then the black hole will be wider around the middle, rather than a perfect circle.įor a more dramatic view, though, zip on over to the Milky Way's centre, the home of a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than the Sun.
#A JOURNEY INTO A BLACK HOLE PORTABLE#
If you circle around it, you'll notice that it's spherical, unlike those flat, Acme portable holes in Road Runner cartoons. A lone black hole is, unsurprisingly, black. Even if you're travelling at the speed of light, the nearest black hole will still take a few thousand years to reach.īut let's say you master interstellar travel, whether via warp drive or wormholes, and you reach one of these black holes. The Milky Way has at least 100 billion stars, which means about 100 million black holes are lurking out there in the galaxy.
About one out of every thousand stars in the galaxy is massive enough to make a black hole. Only stars with enough heft – those maybe about 25 times more massive than our Sun – will create one. When a massive star exhausts its fuel, it collapses under its own weight and implodes into a black hole.
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