Sagittarius A*

[Vavrik]

Something interesting happened today. Thought I'd share. From 27,000 light years away: Meet Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A Star) This is the first image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Well actually it's the first radio telescope picture of the accretion disk of the black hole. It's a little over 4 million solar masses - and to enter it would be the last thing we'd ever see of you.

From NASA

Sagittarius A*: NASA Telescopes Support Event Horizon Telescope in Studying Milky Way's Black Hole - NASA

Multiple telescopes, including Chandra, observed the Milky Way's giant black hole simultaneously with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). This combined effort gave insight into what is happening farther out than the field-of-view of the EHT.

www.nasa.gov

 

[DeepFriedEggs]

I seen a photo like that a while ago. from 2019, the interesting thing about it is the image is not taken from above. The gravity is so strong the light light is warped into a circle but part of what you see is actually from behind the black hole. You can't see the light passing through the black hole as that would be impossible, but it warps it so much you can see it anyway. The light bends around the black hole. The way I understand it, it would look like this from almost any angle.

From Vox in 2019

 

[Vavrik]

We have imaged just 2 supermassive black holes. What you saw in April 2019 was from the galaxy M87, 53.5. million light years away. Today was from our own galaxy.

 

[FZD]

That's cool and all, but unless I can pay $550 for that jpeg, it's just not the same...

 

[Talonsbane]

I thought I'd seen a black hole once, but it turned out that it was just my shadow underneath me. Oops

 

[Rear_Intruder]

I have been there in Elite Dangerous and it looks nothing like that!

 

[Vavrik]

I have been there in Elite Dangerous and it looks nothing like that!

I've seen that. Elite Dangerous has the right idea, except for a few details that don't matter for the game.
here's a video from Veritasium. I mean it explains a lot if anyone is both interested and has about 20 minutes.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1bSDnuIPbo&t=551s

 

[Daft Olll]

Well if it holding up our galaxy. Dam that's a pretty god job. o7 Sagittarius A*

 

[Sky Captain]

Not to be too philosophical, but one might wonder if we are looking at one of the 'wombs of creation' with this thing. Imagine the singularity's immense gravitation sucking everything in over the eons, reforging reality at the sub-quantum level, then exploding in a next 'big bang' of creation once it finally reaches an over-accelerated and overheated critical mass. Mind boggling.

I wonder if it makes a giant sucking sound as its pulling everything down the drain ...

 

[Mich Angel]

Everyone know that a black hole is not a HOLE in space.. right...?
As many seem to confuse wormhole in space with black hole...!

But but they say it have a event horizon.... Yeah that is from the point in space where light does not emit or reflect anymore surround it..
A black hole is some kind of planet/gas mass so dense compacted from gravity that light does not reflect off it any more or let any light out..
Light can't shine through a object or a compressed planet/gas/star mass or whatever it was before gravity compressed it, it is still mass.

Hence we can not see light reflecting in front of it, only light reflecting from behind,
as such yes it is always look like a black dot ( hole ), but not a actual hole )) regardless from what direction you would look at it.

And when they say anything that get close enough get sucked in, well it's not a vacuum hose sucking in space ha ha..
It is a gravitational pull that pull whatever mass or light into its mass if it get to close. ( Like our Jupiter does with asteroids and space debris )

Previous picture shown from couple years back are predicted computer generated what they thought it would look like.
And the latest radio telescope picture are actual pictures generated from the radio telescopes around the world and the prediction was pretty much bang on the money.


CHEERS!

 

[Lethal1961]

Something interesting happened today. Thought I'd share. From 27,000 light years away: Meet Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A Star) This is the first image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Well actually it's the first radio telescope picture of the accretion disk of the black hole. It's a little over 4 million solar masses - and to enter it would be the last thing we'd ever see of you.

View attachment 22861

From NASA

Sagittarius A*: NASA Telescopes Support Event Horizon Telescope in Studying Milky Way's Black Hole - NASA

Multiple telescopes, including Chandra, observed the Milky Way's giant black hole simultaneously with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). This combined effort gave insight into what is happening farther out than the field-of-view of the EHT.

www.nasa.gov

I bet my Aurora MR could do it lol .

 

[Lethal1961]

Not to be too philosophical, but one might wonder if we are looking at one of the 'wombs of creation' with this thing. Imagine the singularity's immense gravitation sucking everything in over the eons, reforging reality at the sub-quantum level, then exploding in a next 'big bang' of creation once it finally reaches an over-accelerated and overheated critical mass. Mind boggling.

I wonder if it makes a giant sucking sound as its pulling everything down the drain ...

Yes I bet it's almost as loud the sucking sound this game makes when you buy a ship .

 

[Vavrik]

Yes I bet it's almost as loud the sucking sound this game makes when you buy a ship .

That is actually the sound of your wallet screaming in agony.

 

[Jolly_Green_Giant]

Everyone know that a black hole is not a HOLE in space.. right...?
As many seem to confuse wormhole in space with black hole...!

But but they say it have a event horizon.... Yeah that is from the point in space where light does not emit or reflect anymore surround it..
A black hole is some kind of planet/gas mass so dense compacted from gravity that light does not reflect off it any more or let any light out..
Light can't shine through a object or a compressed planet/gas/star mass or whatever it was before gravity compressed it, it is still mass.

Hence we can not see light reflecting in front of it, only light reflecting from behind,
as such yes it is always look like a black dot ( hole ), but not a actual hole )) regardless from what direction you would look at it.

And when they say anything that get close enough get sucked in, well it's not a vacuum hose sucking in space ha ha..
It is a gravitational pull that pull whatever mass or light into its mass if it get to close. ( Like our Jupiter does with asteroids and space debris )

Previous picture shown from couple years back are predicted computer generated what they thought it would look like.
And the latest radio telescope picture are actual pictures generated from the radio telescopes around the world and the prediction was pretty much bang on the money.


CHEERS!

Some even speculate that the entirety of the black hole exists in its event horizon. What's beyond that is actually nothing, a complete breakdown of reality. No time, no space.

 

[Vavrik]

Some even speculate that the entirety of the black hole exists in its event horizon. What's beyond that is actually nothing, a complete breakdown of reality. No time, no space.

It is a hypothesis, but is unprovable with current methods. btw, there is an important distinction to make, and I'll try to keep it in terms that my kids get. In science, a hypothesis is essentially an idea, the equivalent of a what if. A theory is a hypothesis that has some evidence that indicates it might be true. Both are subject to change as we learn more.

Something interesting though. According to a theory by Steven Hawking et all, that the event horizon (to be precise, the photon sphere) would contain an image of what went into the black hole for a period of time after something falls in. This is made up of just photons which only exist at the speed of light. The matter, the bits that have mass, we have no idea what it's fate is, other than it gets absorbed. From General Relativity, if it ever achieves the speed of light, it would cease to have mass. Eventually the matter is also ejected as the black hole evaporates (a process called Hawking Radiation, and likely takes trillions of trillions of years) but what comes out is just more primary particles. The information, even the idea of the atoms and molecules of what it was, is lost forever. There is no definitive proof of any of that, and there is more than one apparent contradiction. It just means there is more work to do.

 

[Mahateja]

M87's Accretion disc looks/behaves the same as Sagittarius A's. That's my big takeaway, as well as black hole spin axes not being the directional source of galactic spin axes.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

But but they say it have a event horizon.... Yeah that is from the point in space where light does not emit or reflect anymore surround it..
A black hole is some kind of planet/gas mass so dense compacted from gravity that light does not reflect off it any more or let any light out..
Light can't shine through a object or a compressed planet/gas/star mass or whatever it was before gravity compressed it, it is still mass.

Hence we can not see light reflecting in front of it, only light reflecting from behind. . .

Black holes are gravitational valleys where the slope of the gradient is greater than the speed of light, so nothing can have an escape velocity high enough to exit the region. We do not see light reflect around the event horizon. We see light pass in a straight line through space but the space itself is so severely curved by the gravity that from afar it appears the light is bending. It is aqctually spacetime itself that is bent and the light passeds as always, in a straight line through it.

For these kinds of things remember, "Mass tells space how to curve. Space tells mass (and light) how to move".

 

[Sky Captain]

Something interesting though. According to a theory by Steven Hawking et all, that the event horizon (to be precise, the photon sphere) would contain an image of what went into the black hole for a period of time after something falls in.

Imagine if we invented a way to 'read' the photos trapped in the photon sphere ....

 

[Mich Angel]

Black holes are gravitational valleys where the slope of the gradient is greater than the speed of light, so nothing can have an escape velocity high enough to exit the region. We do not see light reflect around the event horizon. We see light pass in a straight line through space but the space itself is so severely curved by the gravity that from afar it appears the light is bending. It is aqctually spacetime itself that is bent and the light passeds as always, in a straight line through it.

For these kinds of things remember, "Mass tells space how to curve. Space tells mass (and light) how to move".

Well yeah that's what I said, but in a more simple kid friendly explanation...
to avoid complexity of the matter as most we know of space is just a best guess based on current knowledge base.

CHEERS!

 

[Vavrik]

Imagine if we invented a way to 'read' the photos trapped in the photon sphere ....

This is a little hard to explain. It is not a photo, it's a bunch of photons. Not coherent like a picture which would mean they have been ejected from the event horizon to be seen., instead they would be orbiting the event horizon at the speed of light. Your only chance of seeing them is if you were in the photon sphere, looking directly at them incoming to your position. But, from there you are already far beyond the point of no return. So before you could go blind from being hit by many times more photons than a lifetime's worth in a fraction of a second, you would fall into the black hole.

But there's something hidden in all this that you might find interesting. It's another hypothesis, something I don't think we can never prove but some of the mathematics seems to indicate this might work. But it depends on too much conjecture to turn into a theory itself, though it does depend on some theories that are shockingly brilliant. Read just a little further

Not to be too philosophical, but one might wonder if we are looking at one of the 'wombs of creation' with this thing. Imagine the singularity's immense gravitation sucking everything in over the eons, reforging reality at the sub-quantum level, then exploding in a next 'big bang' of creation once it finally reaches an over-accelerated and overheated critical mass. Mind boggling.

Not quite a "womb of creation, they destroy everything they come in contact with, including ultimately, themselves. It'll take a very long time for that to happen, but it's part of what is referred to as the heat death of our universe. But it turns out that some of the math involved seems to indicate that the death of our universe could be the birth of another. That our infinity becomes another universes big bang. And conveniently, all that is required to have that happen is for there to be some extra dimensions in our universe that are curled up around the dimensions we can perceive in such a way so we can't perceive them directly. Kind of interesting if someone can figure out how to make this more than some interesting math.