NASA's visualization shows the deformed world of a black hole

This new visualization of a black hole shows how much its gravity distorts our vision and distorts its environment as if seen in a carnival mirror. The visualization simulates the appearance of a black hole where infiltrating matter has accumulated in a thin, hot structure called an accretion disk. The extreme gravity of the black hole tilts the light emitted by different regions of the disc, thus producing misshapen appearance.

Brilliant knots form and dissipate constantly in the disk in the form of magnetic fields that wrap and twist through the gas. Nearer the black hole, the gas rotates around the speed of light, while the outer parts turn a little slower. This difference stretches and shears clear knots, producing bright, dark lines in the disc.

Viewed from the side, the disc is brighter on the left than on the right. The glowing gases on the left side of the disc are moving towards us so quickly that the effects of Einstein's relativity give it a surge in brightness. the opposite occurs on the right side, where the gas that moves away from us becomes slightly weaker. This asymmetry disappears when we see the disc face to face because, from this point of view, no material moves in our field of vision.

Closer to the black hole, the bending of gravitational light becomes so excessive that we can see the underside of the disc as a ring of bright light that seems to delineate the black hole. This so-called "ring of photons" is composed of several rings, more and more thin and increasingly thin, because of the light that surrounded the black hole two, three or even several times before s & # 39; to escape to reach our eyes. The black hole modeled in this visualization being spherical, the photon ring is almost circular and identical regardless of the angle of view. Inside the photon ring lies the shadow of the black hole, an area about twice as large as the event horizon – its point of no return.

"Simulations and films like these really help us visualize what Einstein meant when he said that gravity distorts the fabric of space and time," says Jeremy Schnittman, who generated these stunning images with the help of custom software at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Until very recently, these visualizations were limited to our imagination and our computer programs, and I never thought it would be possible to see a real black hole." Still, on April 10, the Event Horizon Telescope team released the very first black hole shadow image using radio observations from the heart of the M87 galaxy.