Posted on 05/08/2024 12:45:52 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: What would it look like to circle a black hole? If the black hole was surrounded by a swirling disk of glowing and accreting gas, then the great gravity of the black hole would deflect light emitted by the disk to make it look very unusual. The featured animated video gives a visualization. The video starts with you, the observer, looking toward the black hole from just above the plane of the accretion disk. Surrounding the central black hole is a thin circular image of the orbiting disk that marks the position of the photon sphere -- inside of which lies the black hole's event horizon. Toward the left, parts of the large main image of the disk appear brighter as they move toward you. As the video continues, you loop over the black hole, soon looking down from the top, then passing through the disk plane on the far side, then returning to your original vantage point. The accretion disk does some interesting image inversions -- but never appears flat. Visualizations such as this are particularly relevant today as black holes are being imaged in unprecedented detail by the Event Horizon Telescope.
Well, it is NASA Black Hole Week and we should be thankful that the posts have not been “Big Mike’s Buttocks”.
I am not an astrophysicist or anyone of consequence, but why would the image of the light around a black holes distortion change in relation to the observer. This animation is contingent upon the suggestion that the light is coming from a flat plane one direction. Seems to me that Irregardless of which direction a black hole is observed, it would have the same appearance.
Cool picture.
With all due respect, I don’t think you understood my point.
The animation shows changes to the gravitational lensing depending on the position of the observer. It seems to me that the gravitational lensing would be observed from all directions.
I think you are correct, lensing would happen regardless of observer position. But, the maximum that light could bend is 90 degrees and still be seen by the observer. Anything greater than 90 degrees is wrapped up and trapped in the black hole. That is 90 degrees from the top, bottom and sides so really 180 degrees total (+/- 90 degrees) from the back of the black hole relative to the observer. Since the accretion disk is pretty much a plane, the bending around the bottom of the black hole disappears from view if the observer moves above the plane of the accretion disk, but the bending above the black hole would still be visible. Of course this is all theory because there is no way to move around to measure this in an experiment.
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