as a non astrophysicist, or just a non astronomer in general. it weirds me out every time i remember that there is literally a part of the universe that apparently exists, of which we will never be able to see, because the light from that part of the universe, quite literally hasn’t reached us yet.
The observable universe is inconceivably massive. But it just keeps going.
And to think it’s not an improbable concept for humanity to recreate the physics behind a big bang in a controlled setting, somewhere down the line from here, is certainly an interesting thought.
perhaps some day we will figure out how to travel faster to light, and the metaphorical light will be capable of reaching us. Though thats also another really bizarre fact.
I always wondered why they draw black holes like they do in that the accretion looks like it’s drawn in two planes. I would have thought it would have looked a bit more like a saturns rings?
Or is it exactly like saturns rings but we see the whole ring bent round the top because a black hole bends the light around so we can see it?
Or is it something else entirely that they are trying to depict here?
Black homes are so massive and heavy that they bend light (well, technically every piece of mass does, even yo momma). It’s bend so extreme that that accretion disk appears warped.
A similar thing happens with neutron stars that can also bend light in such a way that you can actually see part of the back of the star (if you were able to see it anyway, it would be dark) as light that would be emitted from parts of the back would warp around to the front where you could see it
Yeah, I misremembered the Interstellar paper that said it was the first simulation for a movie and thought it was the first image simulation ever. It’s even referencing the old one there.
Documentary watcher here. Isn’t the “photosphere” of the star defined by the visible surface? It is my understanding you could be “hundreds of millions of kilometers inside” the corona and not know it, but inside the photosphere?
Meaning a little less than half of that radius is way way way less than 20 million times less dense. That’s wild.
I think about that when looking at luminous gas clouds that are millions of lys across. We can only “see” it because all the photons coming from that region of space is concentrated in a tiny visible area.
I was under the impression that the time it would take you to get spaghettified would render the fear of such an experience irrelevant, as you’d be long dead of natural causes before then.
they will inevitably fall towards the centre and get spaghettified at some point
Not before they witnessed the birth and death of thousands of civilizations! (I know they wouldn’t actually be able to witness them, not having the right equipment and being dead in due order, it’s just neat to think about relativity in that context. 😊)
Surely they’re more like ocean waves; EM waves are electric and magnetic fields pulling each other up by their boot straps. Gravity waves are distortions in spacetime
I highly suggest you look up PBS spacetime on YouTube. They have an incredible amount of very informative videos on black holes and gravitational waves. As well as pretty much any other astrophysics topic you can think of (and many you can’t!)
Removed by mod
:0 how can you be inside a star and not know it? I thought they all had a surface like our Sun
second question, would you even feel the spaghettification? Would the signals from nerves be able to travell up to the brain?
Removed by mod
Right? How can you not know it?
Hmm, am I in the star yet? I mean my body is now made of million degree hot plasma, but I’m still not sure…
as a non astrophysicist, or just a non astronomer in general. it weirds me out every time i remember that there is literally a part of the universe that apparently exists, of which we will never be able to see, because the light from that part of the universe, quite literally hasn’t reached us yet.
The observable universe is inconceivably massive. But it just keeps going.
And to think it’s not an improbable concept for humanity to recreate the physics behind a big bang in a controlled setting, somewhere down the line from here, is certainly an interesting thought.
The light will never reach us, space is expanding faster than light between here and there
perhaps some day we will figure out how to travel faster to light, and the metaphorical light will be capable of reaching us. Though thats also another really bizarre fact.
Hi Astrophysics,
I always wondered why they draw black holes like they do in that the accretion looks like it’s drawn in two planes. I would have thought it would have looked a bit more like a saturns rings? Or is it exactly like saturns rings but we see the whole ring bent round the top because a black hole bends the light around so we can see it? Or is it something else entirely that they are trying to depict here?
Black homes are so massive and heavy that they bend light (well, technically every piece of mass does, even yo momma). It’s bend so extreme that that accretion disk appears warped.
A similar thing happens with neutron stars that can also bend light in such a way that you can actually see part of the back of the star (if you were able to see it anyway, it would be dark) as light that would be emitted from parts of the back would warp around to the front where you could see it
Removed by mod
The second one. The image is simulated as how an external observer would see it. It was firstly done for the Interstellar movie.
The first simulated images were actually computed decades ago, but I think Interstellar had the most detailed simulation by a high margin
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/press/first-ever-image-black-hole-cnrs-researcher-had-simulated-it-early-1979
Interstellar spent 100 hours of mainframe compute time per frame to simulate a black hole
https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/black-hole-photo-christopher-nolan-insterstellar-predicted-look-1202057414/
Wow, that first one is so cool.
Yeah, I misremembered the Interstellar paper that said it was the first simulation for a movie and thought it was the first image simulation ever. It’s even referencing the old one there.
Cool, thought for a long time there it was just an artistic liberty; but this is much cooler.
Documentary watcher here. Isn’t the “photosphere” of the star defined by the visible surface? It is my understanding you could be “hundreds of millions of kilometers inside” the corona and not know it, but inside the photosphere?
Removed by mod
Meaning a little less than half of that radius is way way way less than 20 million times less dense. That’s wild.
I think about that when looking at luminous gas clouds that are millions of lys across. We can only “see” it because all the photons coming from that region of space is concentrated in a tiny visible area.
I was under the impression that the time it would take you to get spaghettified would render the fear of such an experience irrelevant, as you’d be long dead of natural causes before then.
Removed by mod
Not before they witnessed the birth and death of thousands of civilizations! (I know they wouldn’t actually be able to witness them, not having the right equipment and being dead in due order, it’s just neat to think about relativity in that context. 😊)
What really are gravitational waves? Are they like electromagnetic waves? Do they cause orbital decay? I have so many questions.
Removed by mod
Surely they’re more like ocean waves; EM waves are electric and magnetic fields pulling each other up by their boot straps. Gravity waves are distortions in spacetime
Removed by mod
I highly suggest you look up PBS spacetime on YouTube. They have an incredible amount of very informative videos on black holes and gravitational waves. As well as pretty much any other astrophysics topic you can think of (and many you can’t!)
Gravitational waves do cause orbital decay as the energy required to create them comes from the objects own momentumn.