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Explanation: If one black hole looks strange, what about two? Light rays from accretion disks around a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes make their way through the warped space-time produced by extreme gravity in this detailed computer visualization. The simulated accretion disks have been given different false color schemes, red for the disk surrounding a 200-million-solar-mass black hole, and blue for the disk surrounding a 100-million-solar-mass black hole. For these masses, though, both accretion disks would actually emit most of their light in the ultraviolet. The video allows us to see both sides of each black hole at the same time. Red and blue light originating from both black holes can be seen in the innermost ring of light, called the photon sphere, near their event horizons. In the past decade, gravitational waves from black hole collisions have actually been detected, although the coalescence of supermassive black holes remains undiscovered.
Hole New Worlds:
It's Black Hole Week at NASA!
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: black hole - accretion disk
Publications with words: black hole - accretion disk
See also:
- APOD: 2025 May 9 B IXPE Explores a Black Hole Jet
- APOD: 2025 May 4 B Spin up of a Supermassive Black Hole
- APOD: 2024 November 24 B Journey to the Center of the Galaxy
- APOD: 2024 October 1 B Porphyrion: The Longest Known Black Hole Jets
- APOD: 2024 June 16 B Animation: Black Hole Destroys Star
- Simulation: Two Black Holes Merge
- The Galaxy, the Jet, and a Famous Black Hole