Cosmos
Stars distort in black hole video tour
Constellations appear to fall apart as they approach event horizon
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nasa1fan/MSFC/FlickrNASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has helped create a spectacular view of Centaurus A that shows the effects of a supermassive black hole. At the center of this nearby galaxy, a central black hole powers jets and lobes that flare against a background of stars and stardust. In the upper left of the image, an X-ray jet extends about 13,000 light years away from the black hole. The material in that jet is travelling at about half the speed of light.
A new simulator shows how stars appear as you get closer to a black hole.
The interactive program, created by Thomas Müller and Daniel Weiskopf of the University of Stuttgart in Germany, shows how light behaves as it's affected by the extreme gravity formed by a black hole.
A black hole occurs from the huge gravitational force of an exploding star. The force is so strong and dense that nothing can escape it, not even light, marking the event horizon. In fact, the enormous gravitational pull of a black hole would seem to displace the surrounding stars.
A video demonstration of the simulator shows the constellation Orion as it moves toward the black hole, becomes distorted, then appears on the other side - in reverse, Müller told New Scientist.
"The constellation approaches the black hole, then you see stars like Betelgeuse – the left shoulder of Orion – appear twice, on the right and left sides of the black hole. It's as if the black hole is like a mirror."
Last year, University of Colorado researchers unveiled in New Scientist a video of what you'd see if you fell into a black hole. Müller and Weiskopf have gone a step further, showing how the surrounding stars appear and creating a program that lets you alter various inputs to tour a black hole's environs.
The Müller/Weiskopf simulation program obtained its data from about 118,000 stars mapped by the European Space Agency's Hipparcos satellite. Once you download the program, you can see the effects of a Schwarzchild black hole on any constellation or grouping of stars you like, reports Physorg.com.
Video
On the Web
New Scientist: New black hole simulator uses real star data
New Scientist: What would it look like to fall into a black hole?
Psyorg.com: Fall Into A Black Hole At The Speed Of Light With New Simulator
American Journal of Physics: Distortion of the stellar sky by a Schwarzschild black hole
