The Finest Images of Black Holes: When Hard Science Turns to Photoshop
NASA-funded astronomers made minor history May 20th when they released the “Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets” assembled from radio telescopic images collected in the southern hemisphere.
NASA-funded astronomers made minor history May 20th when they released the "Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets" assembled from radio telescopic images collected in the southern hemisphere.Just to be clear: This isn't a photo of a black hole. There are no pictures of black holes. Because, as every third grader should be able to tell you, they are so gravitationally hungry that even light can't escape – which makes them damn near impossible (thus far) to photograph.
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What can be photographed is all the stuff they're sucking in – precisely the stuff that is not the black hole. "These jets arise as infalling matter approaches the black hole, but we don't yet know the details of how they form and maintain themselves," said Cornelia Mueller, a german doctoral student and the lead author of a report about the image that will be published this June in Astronomy and Astrophysics.The image is a composite of optical and radio spectrum data, and is, really, pretty impressive.The photo is also special in that it speaks to the drama of black holes without coming off as ridiculous. And as such, it sits on the top of a very substantial pile of previous tries. It seems that the inherent silliness of trying to picture black holes hasn't stopped people from trying, for a while, with pretty amazing results. here are a few of the best:Basic setup first, here's a NASA illustration of a black hole dragging space into itself. Black holes spin, apparently, but at different rates. From the image description:
"A possible explanation for the differences in spin among stellar black holes is that they are born spinning at different rates. Another is that the gas flowing into the black hole spins it up."
Even NASA illustrations tend to look, let's be honest, a bit like bad music visualization — the kind that, when you think about it, really don't correspond to anything that your speakers are pumping out.
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Below, for instance, the black (blue) hole is sucking in the disk of a smaller galaxy.
Here's another, the Astronomy picture of the day from 2/24/2004, an artist's depiction of a star being "ripped apart" by a black hole.
This NASA illustration shows solar wind spiraling inward (though 30% is blowing in the opposite direction) and actually is kind of important, when you get down to it. According to the Chandra X-Ray Observatory site, the analysis it's based on "confirmed what astronomers had long suspected, namely that magnetic friction is central to understanding how black holes accrete matter rapidly. Without a process to take away some of the angular momentum of the gas, it could remain in orbit around a black hole for a very long time." But it really just makes me want to listen to Pink Floyd.
Beyond the scientific community, however, things just get ridiculous. This small, uncredited, piece of art pretty much sums up everything that's awesome about Black Hole Art. It almost looks like it should include howling wolves or jumping orcas.
On the flip side — not everybody has the kind of talent it takes to imagine a cosmic landscape. For those people, there is always photoshop. All you have to do is cut a circle out of a generic milky way picture, and then use the "pull" tool. Kind of like this:
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Here's another, the Astronomy picture of the day from 2/24/2004, an artist's depiction of a star being "ripped apart" by a black hole.
This NASA illustration shows solar wind spiraling inward (though 30% is blowing in the opposite direction) and actually is kind of important, when you get down to it. According to the Chandra X-Ray Observatory site, the analysis it's based on "confirmed what astronomers had long suspected, namely that magnetic friction is central to understanding how black holes accrete matter rapidly. Without a process to take away some of the angular momentum of the gas, it could remain in orbit around a black hole for a very long time." But it really just makes me want to listen to Pink Floyd.
Beyond the scientific community, however, things just get ridiculous. This small, uncredited, piece of art pretty much sums up everything that's awesome about Black Hole Art. It almost looks like it should include howling wolves or jumping orcas.
On the flip side — not everybody has the kind of talent it takes to imagine a cosmic landscape. For those people, there is always photoshop. All you have to do is cut a circle out of a generic milky way picture, and then use the "pull" tool. Kind of like this:
