How to see a black hole?
The image of the black hole received last week by the efforts of eight telescopes and thirteen institutes was blurred and less interesting than the drawings of artists, so the historical event gave rise to many sometimes malicious memes (if you suddenly did not see: donut , eye of Sauron , cat , seal , marketing ). How can we see black holes in good quality and at the same time realistic?
The past week has shown that the image of a black hole can be obtained by combining several telescopes in different parts of the globe into an interferometer with a super-long base and spending a large amount of machine and human time to process the data.
Image Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
')
The greater the distance between the telescopes combined into an interferometer, the higher the resolution. Twenty corner microseconds of Event Horizon Telescope is compared to reading a newspaper in New York from Paris. The supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 has a diameter of 40 billion kilometers, its shadow, visible as a black hole in the center, is 2.5 times larger (100 billion), and the accretion disk of the absorbed gas revolves around several times wider. Therefore, the black hole could be seen from a gigantic distance of 55 million light years.
Despite the fact that a black hole absorbs everything that has flown over the horizon of events, it can be seen by studying the behavior of matter outside this horizon. Watching the movement of stars for decades, you can see how in the center of our galaxy they revolve around some kind of heavy, but invisible object.
Keck / UCLA image
The accretion disk of a black hole generates relativistic jets (jets) —the plasma flows ejected at almost a light speed. Here, for example, the combination of images in the visible (“Hubble”) and radio range of the jet galaxy Hercules A.
NASA image
And the jet emanating from the center of the galaxy Centaurus A is larger than the galaxy itself.
CXC / NASA and ESO image
Emissions can be another form. Here are two sneezes of a supposedly black hole 26 million light-years away from us in the X-ray range.
NASA image
Another option is to look at the change in the trajectory of light passing near a black hole. Due to the curvature of space, its path changes, and the effect of gravitational lensing arises, thanks to which we see the same object repeated in the sky several times. Especially clearly it turns out, when the galaxy lenses a quasar (supermassive black hole) - the “Einstein's cross” appears in the sky.
NASA image
2016 gave us the opportunity to also hear black holes. The gravitational waves transformed into the audible ear of the human ear from the confluence of two black holes complement the visual beauty above.
Where the reality is giving up, the cinema comes to the rescue. To our happiness, the directors are not too lazy to invite real scientists as scientific consultants, and the drawn objects are very realistic. Released in 2014, Interstellar could boast a very high-quality image of a supermassive black hole created on the basis of equations written by physicist Kip Thorn.
Frame from the film
And the creators of the Higher Society picture that appeared last year attracted French astrophysicist Aurelien Barrot. The result was much closer to the image of the Event Horizon Telescope than the Interstellar.
Frame from the film
It makes no sense to argue which of the scientists is more than right - both images show scientifically correct phenomena of gravitational lensing and accretion disk. By the way, the first image of a black hole was created back in 1979 by the French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet using a computer and, not surprisingly, it looks like both above, and the photo of a real black hole obtained last week.
And if it’s not enough for someone to just watch and want more interactivity, for example, to fly around a black hole on their own, then the Space Engine sandwich-box planet sandwich is best suited for this. Being near a black hole in the center of M87 there is a matter of a couple of minutes. We find the galaxy, press Ctrl + Shift + G, voila, we are there.
We make a screenshot, play a little with brightness and color, and we have an almost exact copy of the real image.
And since the Space Engine can virtually fly throughout the universe, enthusiasts not only looked at the M87, but also found much more beautiful shots.
Black hole in the center of M87
Reality
The past week has shown that the image of a black hole can be obtained by combining several telescopes in different parts of the globe into an interferometer with a super-long base and spending a large amount of machine and human time to process the data.
Image Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
')
The greater the distance between the telescopes combined into an interferometer, the higher the resolution. Twenty corner microseconds of Event Horizon Telescope is compared to reading a newspaper in New York from Paris. The supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 has a diameter of 40 billion kilometers, its shadow, visible as a black hole in the center, is 2.5 times larger (100 billion), and the accretion disk of the absorbed gas revolves around several times wider. Therefore, the black hole could be seen from a gigantic distance of 55 million light years.
Despite the fact that a black hole absorbs everything that has flown over the horizon of events, it can be seen by studying the behavior of matter outside this horizon. Watching the movement of stars for decades, you can see how in the center of our galaxy they revolve around some kind of heavy, but invisible object.
Keck / UCLA image
The accretion disk of a black hole generates relativistic jets (jets) —the plasma flows ejected at almost a light speed. Here, for example, the combination of images in the visible (“Hubble”) and radio range of the jet galaxy Hercules A.
NASA image
And the jet emanating from the center of the galaxy Centaurus A is larger than the galaxy itself.
CXC / NASA and ESO image
Emissions can be another form. Here are two sneezes of a supposedly black hole 26 million light-years away from us in the X-ray range.
NASA image
Another option is to look at the change in the trajectory of light passing near a black hole. Due to the curvature of space, its path changes, and the effect of gravitational lensing arises, thanks to which we see the same object repeated in the sky several times. Especially clearly it turns out, when the galaxy lenses a quasar (supermassive black hole) - the “Einstein's cross” appears in the sky.
NASA image
2016 gave us the opportunity to also hear black holes. The gravitational waves transformed into the audible ear of the human ear from the confluence of two black holes complement the visual beauty above.
Movie
Where the reality is giving up, the cinema comes to the rescue. To our happiness, the directors are not too lazy to invite real scientists as scientific consultants, and the drawn objects are very realistic. Released in 2014, Interstellar could boast a very high-quality image of a supermassive black hole created on the basis of equations written by physicist Kip Thorn.
Frame from the film
And the creators of the Higher Society picture that appeared last year attracted French astrophysicist Aurelien Barrot. The result was much closer to the image of the Event Horizon Telescope than the Interstellar.
Frame from the film
It makes no sense to argue which of the scientists is more than right - both images show scientifically correct phenomena of gravitational lensing and accretion disk. By the way, the first image of a black hole was created back in 1979 by the French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet using a computer and, not surprisingly, it looks like both above, and the photo of a real black hole obtained last week.
Virtuality
And if it’s not enough for someone to just watch and want more interactivity, for example, to fly around a black hole on their own, then the Space Engine sandwich-box planet sandwich is best suited for this. Being near a black hole in the center of M87 there is a matter of a couple of minutes. We find the galaxy, press Ctrl + Shift + G, voila, we are there.
We make a screenshot, play a little with brightness and color, and we have an almost exact copy of the real image.
And since the Space Engine can virtually fly throughout the universe, enthusiasts not only looked at the M87, but also found much more beautiful shots.
Black hole in the center of M87
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/448518/
All Articles