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Seen almost to the limit, the turbulent gas disk around a black hole takes a double madness. The extreme gravity of the black hole modifies the light paths from different parts of the disk, producing the distorted image. The extreme gravitational field of the black hole redirects and distorts the light coming from different parts of the disc, but what we see depends exactly on our viewing angle. The most significant distortion occurs when you view the system almost vertically. Credit: NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center / Jeremy Schnittman
This new visualization of a black hole illustrates how its gravity distorts our vision, distorting 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 inclines the light emitted by different regions of the disc, thus producing the deformed aspect.
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 incandescent gases on the left side of the disc are moving towards us so quickly that the effects of Einstein's relativity give it a boost 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.
This image highlights and explains various aspects of black hole visualization. Credit: NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center / Jeremy Schnittman
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 thinner, 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 is the shadow of the black hole, an area about twice the size of the event horizon – its point of no return.
"Simulations and films like this really help us visualize what Einstein meant when he said that gravity is distorting the fabric of space and time," says Jeremy Schnittman, who generated these beautiful images at the time. using 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. I never thought it would be possible to see a real black hole. Yet, on April 10, the Event Horizon Telescope team released the very first image of its shadow using radio observations from the heart of the M87 galaxy.
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