This is what a Black Hole surrounded by an Accretion Disk would look like! Light is distorted by its gravitational field
The stunning images produced by NASA and Caltech show what a black hole looks like surrounded by an accretion disk. This disk is formed by the distortion of light, which helps us better understand gravitational fields.
Efforts to better understand the nature of these fascinating black holes are bearing fruit. Thanks to new research, studies, and projects, new horizons have been reached, unraveling several of their mysteries and transforming our understanding of these cosmic giants.
New results in black hole imaging based on research by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech have shed new light on the behavior of their gravitational fields and their interaction with light
The visualization, published on July 17, 2024, by astronomer Robert Hurt, shows in detail how light is gravitationally bent around the black hole , forming a rapidly rotating disk of gas and dust.
This new production has not only confirmed once again the physics of general relativity formulated by Einstein, but has also revolutionized our understanding of how the path of light is deflected and deformed in the presence of a gravitational field.
Black Holes and the Distortion of Light: The Gravitational Limit
The intense gravity of a supermassive black hole pulls all matter around it, constantly absorbing extraordinary amounts of gas and cosmic dust. This material organizes itself around it in the form of a disk, compressing into high densities and heating to extreme temperatures before crossing the event horizon.
Once outside this space, the path of light will begin to bend, reaching limits very close to the speed of light, causing the disk to shine brightly due to the influence of these intense gravitational fields.
The light emitted by an accretion disk is known as "Relativistic Doppler Emission" which enhances the brightness of material approaching us along our line of sight and consequently dims the brightness of material moving away.
Robert Hurt, Astronomer at JPL-Caltech
This will cause the matter, attracted by the immense gravity, to rapidly spiral, thus forming the accretion disk . Furthermore, these disks also have the capacity to release powerful energy emissions in the form of radiation and high-speed jets.
Accretion Disks and Relativity
Recent research has revealed that disks can generate relativistic jets, which are streams of highly energetic particles traveling at speeds close to the speed of light. However, the images taken in this study show representations of how light distortion occurs around a black hole , but using a simplified optical model.
It's important to note that these animations were produced to be scale-invariant, meaning that the way light bends around a black hole will always be the same, regardless of the object's mass.
Therefore, if it were a black hole ten times more massive or even at a distance ten times greater, the image we would see of its accretion disk and its gravitational deformation would possibly be exactly the same.
Creating visualizations and models to learn more about black holes and their interaction with objects in the universe is key to understanding galaxy dynamics , allowing us to get ever closer to uncovering more cosmic mysteries, such as star formation.