Einstein Exhibit -- A Black Hole

A Black Hole...

You can't see a black hole itself. Einstein's equations show that where mass is concentrated to an extreme, space closes in upon itself until not even light can escape the gravitational pull. But you can see matter glowing with heat as it falls in. This picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a whirlpool of hot gas orbiting an astonishing object in the middle of the distant galaxy M87.

Measurements of the gas velocities show that the object must be as massive as three billion suns, all concentrated in a volume no larger than our solar system. Astronomers were pointed to the object by a long jet of gas (upper right), somehow spurted out by the knot of fierce energies generated as other matter falls into the black hole.

You can EXIT to NASA's page on M87 or EXIT to Wright's tutorial on cosmology.

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Courtesy NASA.

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