{"id":10866,"date":"2024-05-06T18:03:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T22:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zobi.alcowep.com\/bourtagshdrevxnls658739\/new-nasa-black-hole-visualization-takes-viewers-beyond-the-brink\/"},"modified":"2024-05-06T18:03:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T22:03:45","slug":"new-nasa-black-hole-visualization-takes-viewers-beyond-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zobi.alcowep.com\/bourtagshdrevxnls658739\/new-nasa-black-hole-visualization-takes-viewers-beyond-the-brink\/","title":{"rendered":"New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink"},"content":{"rendered":"

New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink<\/h2>\n

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5 min read<\/p>\n

New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ever wonder what happens when you fall into a black hole? Now, thanks to a new, immersive visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, viewers can plunge into the event horizon, a black hole\u2019s point of no return.<\/p>\n

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In this visualization of a flight toward a supermassive black hole, labels highlight many of the fascinating features produced by the effects of general relativity along the way. Produced on a NASA supercomputer, the simulation tracks a camera as it approaches, briefly orbits, and then crosses the event horizon \u2014 the point of no return \u2014 of a monster black hole much like the one at the center of our galaxy. Credit: NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center\/J. Schnittman and B. Powell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\t\tView the plunge in 360 video on YouTube<\/span>
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\u201cPeople often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,\u201d said Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/a> in Greenbelt, Maryland, who created the visualizations. \u201cSo I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera \u2014 a stand-in for a daring astronaut \u2014 just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The visualizations are available in multiple forms. Explainer videos act as sightseeing guides, illuminating the bizarre effects of Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity. Versions rendered as 360-degree videos let viewers look all around during the trip, while others play as flat all-sky maps.<\/p>\n

To create the visualizations, Schnittman teamed up with fellow Goddard scientist Brian Powell and used the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation<\/a>. The project generated about 10 terabytes of data \u2014 equivalent to roughly half of the estimated text content in the Library of Congress<\/a> \u2014 and took about 5 days running on just 0.3% of Discover\u2019s 129,000 processors. The same feat would take more than a decade on a typical laptop.<\/p>\n

The destination is a supermassive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, equivalent to the monster located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole,\u201d Schnittman explained. \u201cStellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, \u00a0possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n

This occurs because the gravitational pull on the end of an object nearer the black hole is much stronger than that on the other end. Infalling objects stretch out like noodles, a process astrophysicists call spaghettification<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The simulated black hole\u2019s event horizon spans about 16 million miles (25 million kilometers), or about 17% of the distance from Earth to the Sun. A flat, swirling cloud of hot, glowing gas called an accretion disk surrounds it and serves as a visual reference during the fall. So\u00a0do glowing structures called photon rings, which form closer to the black hole from light that has orbited it one or more times. A backdrop of the starry sky as seen from Earth completes the scene.<\/p>\n

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Tour an alternative visualization that tracks a camera as it approaches, falls toward, briefly orbits, and escapes a supermassive black hole. This immersive 360-degree version allows viewers to look around during the flight. Credit: NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center\/J. Schnittman and B. Powell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As the camera approaches the black hole, reaching speeds ever closer to that of light itself, the glow from the accretion disk and background stars becomes amplified in much the same way as the sound of an oncoming racecar rises in pitch. Their light appears brighter and whiter when looking into the direction of travel.<\/p>\n

The movies begin with the camera located nearly 400 million miles (640 million kilometers) away, with the black hole quickly filling the view. Along the way, the black hole\u2019s disk, photon rings, and the night sky become increasingly distorted \u2014 and even form multiple images as their light traverses the increasingly warped space-time.<\/p>\n

In real time, the camera takes about 3 hours to fall to the event horizon, executing almost two complete 30-minute orbits along the way. But to anyone observing from afar, it would never quite get there. As space-time becomes ever more distorted closer to the horizon, the image of the camera would slow and then seem to freeze just shy of it. This is why astronomers originally referred to black holes as \u201cfrozen stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the event horizon, even space-time itself flows inward at the speed of light, the cosmic speed limit. Once inside it, both the camera and the space-time in which it\u2019s moving rush toward the black hole\u2019s center \u2014 a one-dimensional point called a singularity<\/a>, where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the camera crosses the horizon, its destruction by spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away,\u201d Schnittman said. From there, it\u2019s only 79,500 miles (128,000 kilometers) to the singularity. This final leg of the voyage is over in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n

In the alternative scenario, the camera orbits close to the event horizon but it never crosses over and escapes to safety. If an astronaut flew a spacecraft on this 6-hour round trip while her colleagues on a mothership remained far from the black hole, she\u2019d return 36 minutes younger than her colleagues. That\u2019s because time passes more slowly near a strong gravitational source and when moving near the speed of light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation can be even more extreme,\u201d Schnittman noted. \u201cIf the black hole were rapidly rotating, like the one shown in the 2014 movie \u2018Interstellar,\u2019 she would return many years younger than her shipmates.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tDownload high-resolution video and images from NASA\u2019s Scientific Visualization Studio<\/span>
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By Francis Reddy<\/a>
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/a>, Greenbelt, Md.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov<\/a>
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.<\/p>\n

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