Astronomy Picture of the Day 9-08-02

NASA ^ | 9-08-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 September 8

Too Close to a Black Hole
Credit & Copyright: Robert Nemiroff (MTU)

Explanation: What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above are two computer generated images highlighting how strange things would look. On the left is a normal star field containing the constellation Orion. Notice the three stars of nearly equal brightness that make up Orion's Belt. On the right is the same star field but this time with a black hole superposed in the center of the frame. The black hole has such strong gravity that light is noticeably bent towards it - causing some very unusual visual distortions. In the distorted frame, every star in the normal frame has at least two bright images - one on each side of the black hole. In fact, near the black hole, you can see the whole sky - light from every direction is bent around and comes back to you. Black holes are thought to be the densest state of matter, and there is indirect evidence for their presence in stellar binary systems and the centers of globular clusters, galaxies, and quasars.

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Fun Fact:

Star Trek notwithstanding, a black hole and any "wormhole" it creates is a BAAAD place to go near.
Luckily, there seem to be none near enough for us to fool around with. For now...

I encourage those interested in black hole phenomena to click on this link from the article above: "Black holes".
It's really a user-friendly site; not at all rarified or stuffy or too technical.

Get on the list!

[petuniasevan]

[TxBec]

As always, thanks for the ping!

[2Trievers]

Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time, and other essays, with Penrose showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results indicated it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great Scientific development of the first half of the 20th Century. One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.

These quantum mechanics are fascinating. &;-)

[MozartLover]

bump

[2Trievers]

For anyone who hasn't seen this great NASA website for kids ...

You can sign up to send your name to Mars in 2003. Way cool! For CHILDREN of all ages! &;-)

[sleavelessinseattle]

I am more interested than ever to patrol that huge canyon on Mars electronically...NOW for THAT I'd buy a Playstation! Glad to still be a kid at heart!

[BossyRoofer]

Black Holes, so thats where all our governments honor went! HA HA! Good job APOD!

[2Trievers]

Let's define PlayStation ... surely you don't mean the the Steve Fossett cat that is 105 feet LOA, 97.5 feet on the waterline, a mast that is 147.5 feet off the water, a beam of 60 feet, and the daggerboards drawing almost 15 feet?

The one S1 helped build the 11,600+ sq ft Cuben sails for, are you? Hmmmmmmmmmm? &;-)