Real pictures of black hole eating a star?

In summary: M87, a nearby galaxy, revealed the presence of an extremely bright object near the galactic center- at a distance of only about 12 million light-years from Earth.... this object was identified as a supermassive black hole, and measurements of its motion showed that it was devouring a nearby star.Anything else you want to add?In summary, scientists at Berkeley found a black hole eating a star using X-ray imaging. Google is dead to me and I can't find any information on Cygnus X-1.
  • #1
fellupahill
56
0
I keep finding articles about the black hole that scientists at Berkeley found eating a star, live. I want to see the photos or video, or what the founders themselves looked at to deduce it was a black hole eating a star. Google is dead to me. Can't find crap.
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
  • #2
Cygnus X1 was from memory the first identified black hole, many years ago. It is drawing a stream of material from the nearby star. We can't visually see that stream of material spiralling into the black hole. And for obvious reasons cannot see the black hole.
But the detection is done primarialy by the Xrays and other hi energy particles that are emitted from that stream of matter as it spirals into the black hole and is highly compressed

do a google search on Cygnus X-1 there's masses of info with Xray imaging etc

eg... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_X-1

cheers
Dave
 
  • #3
Thanks for the info, tho the one I am talking about was reported to have been found in 2011.
 
  • #4
which specific one ... black holes are being discovered all the time

the really big ones are in the cores of galaxies and the whole galaxy is slowly being "consumed" by the black hole

you need to go back to your source of info and see if there is more info available
you haven't given too much to go on :)

cheers
Dave

EDIT... ok going on what you did give google retrieved masses of links to a Berkeley discovery in early december 2011

but I stress again optical images are not likely to be there.

I searched using ... black hole discovery in 2011 by berkeley university
 
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  • #5
Such events are most obvious in X ray frequencies and rarely detected by other metods, like this one detected by SWIFT http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/08/star-swallowed-by-black-hole.html. Note: I didnt see a disclaimer, but, the video is obviously an artistic rendition, not real.
 
  • #6
Have they ever released the x-ray images of any black holes? If a star was being eaten, we would be able to see the star until it crossed the event horizon right?
 
  • #7
fellupahill said:
Have they ever released the x-ray images of any black holes? If a star was being eaten, we would be able to see the star until it crossed the event horizon right?

not at the distances those galaxy eating black holes are at. the density of the stars at the centre of virtually any galaxy, even closer ones, is such that individual stars near the core are blended into a single bright patch of light... we just don't have the resolution capabilities to see much of individual stars in a core of a galaxy.
heck we can hardly see the core of our own galaxy cus of all the dust and gas etc in the road. and that's only ~ 50,000 lightyears from us. how much more difficult for galaxies that are millions or 100's of millions of lightyears away ?!

And on top of that Xray imaging resolution is much lower than visible light imaging with current technology.

here's a hi resolution pic of JUST the core of one of my fav galaxies NGC253 (imaged by the ESO group)
see how the centre core is just a bright mass no individual stars visible
this galaxy is a mere 11 million ly away!

attachment.php?attachmentid=43684&stc=1&d=1328763773.jpg


cheers
Dave
 

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  • #8
fellupahill said:
Have they ever released the x-ray images of any black holes?

if you followed that wiki link I gave you earlier you would see an X-ray image


Dave
 
  • #9
just for another example ... M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, 28million ly distant
just the core area again...

attachment.php?attachmentid=43686&stc=1&d=1328764554.jpg


again the core is just a bright mass with no individual stars resolved

hopefully that's enough to convince you that you are not going to directly see the destruction of stars falling into a black hole :smile:

cheers
Dave
 

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  • #10
The following website has both a simulation of the black hole swallowing a star and the actual visual data that led to the discovery.

Giant Black Hole Caught Swallowing a Star for the First Time [VIDEO & PHOTO]

This is what scientists believed happened.
The theory they are working with is that the unlucky star must have strayed too close to the supermassive black hole, which is approximately twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass supermassive black hole residing in the center of the Milky Way.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/204...ught-swallowing-a-star-for-the-first-time.htm

The following website shows us the many ways in which the haze from the Milky Way's galactic center can be overcome so that its individual stars become visible. In fact, the existence of the black hole at our galaxy's center which was only once theorized has been confirmed via the meticulous observation of stars that are in orbit around it using infra red. The photos of those high-velocity central stars in orbit around our galaxy's back hole are readily available on the internet.


The Galactic Center at Different Wavelengths
Near-infrared wavelengths have always been a popular region of the EM spectrum for observing the Galactic Center due to both their ability to pass though the dust along the plane as well as our ability to get high resolution images at these wavelengths.

Also, near-infrared detectors have been around for a long time allowing most 3-10 meter class telescopes to collect electronic images in the near-infrared. Near-infrared images of the Galactic Center mostly probe the stellar content showing an abundant amount of stars. The earliest near-infrared images of the Galactic Center could only resolve groups of stars while recent observations like those shown above can resolve the individual stars within the clusters and be able to see the faintest members of the clusters.

In fact, high resolution near-infrared observations by the Keck telescope have been able to resolve a tiny cluster of stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole at the very center of our galaxy. However, only in the past few years have we begun to resolve the stars enough to obtain their stellar spectra which will reveal the kinds of stars they are - blue supergiants of red giant stars, for instance. So there is much more near-infrared research ahead using new 10-meter class telescopes like Gemini and the VLT as well as Keck.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/journey/wave.shtml
 
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  • #11
^ Everyone. As always you guys rock.
 
  • #12
Radrook said:
The following website has both a simulation of the black hole swallowing a star and the actual visual data that led to the discovery.

as I have been trying to impress upon the OP throughout my posts, no its not visual (optical) ! it was done at radio and xray wavelengths




Dave
 
  • #13
Ya I just wanted to see the actual stock. What the people working on the project saw. It helped reduce a suspicion that I was in a simulation and quantum physics is just a mask so I don't find any "tells"; so I stay blissfully unaware that I am being harvested by robots :p This delusion also included all of you being apart of the system cause all the "physicsts" are the "agents". Lol. Helping to keep us in line, with fake science. Black holes were fake, and the christians were right the world is like 60 years old. Ha, weird huh huh.

No need to delete my post, or reply to it. Not trying to start overly speculative conversation. Just thought it was kinda funny how paranoid I can get especially when i take my medication.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Peer reviewed source.
 
  • #14
Moreover, a posthuman simulator would have enough computing power to keep track of the detailed belief-states in all human brains at all times. Therefore, when it saw that a human was about to make an observation of the microscopic world, it could fill in sufficient detail in the simulation in the appropriate domain on an as-needed basis. Should any error occur, the director could easily edit the states of any brains that have become aware of an anomaly before it spoils the simulation. Alternatively, the director could skip back a few seconds and rerun the simulation in a way that avoids the problem.

Creepay.
 
  • #15
davenn said:
as I have been trying to impress upon the OP throughout my posts, no its not visual (optical) ! it was done at radio and xray wavelengths



At the risk of being pedantic, please note that I am not claiming that a black hole is directly visible or that the detection of the OPED black hole star swallowing phenomenon was not done via X-ray or radio wavelengths. Please read my post and you will see that I am referring to the stars near the galaxy centers being visible in infra red as opposed to being completely hidden behind a totally visually impenetrable haze. Sorry if I gave another impression. Infrared detection of such stars is a visual detection just as detecting an enemy in the dark via infra red is. Visual as opposed to olfactory, auditory, gustatory, or tactile dectection.


op·ti·cal
   /ˈɒptɪkəl/ Show Spelled[op-ti-kuhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or applying optics or the principles of optics.
2.
constructed to assist sight or to correct defects in vision.
3.
of or pertaining to sight or vision; visual.
4.
of or pertaining to the eye.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optical


vis·u·al
   /ˈvɪʒuəl/ Show Spelled[vizh-oo-uhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of or pertaining to seeing or sight: a visual image.
2.
used in seeing: the visual sense.
3.
optical.
4.
perceptible by the sense of sight; visible: a visual beauty.
5.
perceptible by the mind; of the nature of a mental vision: a visual impression captured in a line of verse.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/visual



Infrared Sunglasses See Black Hole Disks
http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/pressroom/2008_irpol/ [Broken]
But what's really interesting about this series of images is the insight it gives into the way astronomers use infrared light to penetrate the foggy veil of particles obscuring the view.




Seeing more clearly in infrared

In video: A clearer look at the Carina Nebula
This handy time-lapse video switches from visible to infrared wavelengths as it zooms in on interesting features around the Carina Nebula.
It shows not only the brilliant massive stars and brightly lit clouds of dust visible to conventional optical telescopes, but also the hundreds of thousands of other, much fainter and more distant, stars that are normally hidden from view
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16945696
 
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  • #16
fellupahill said:
...we would be able to see the star until it crossed the event horizon right?

To be pedantic, the star will not near the EH as a star. Long before it gets near the BH, the star will be torn apart by tidal forces into a stream gas spiraling down to the BH (this is what you see in all the artist renditions), raging brightly in all EM frequencies (but especially X-rays) as it falls and compresses.
 
  • #17
DaveC426913 said:
To be pedantic, the star will not near the EH as a star. Long before it gets near the BH, the star will be torn apart by tidal forces into a stream gas spiraling down to the BH (this is what you see in all the artist renditions), raging brightly in all EM frequencies (but especially X-rays) as it falls and compresses.

Thanks Dave,

which was exactly what I was describing with the Cygnus X-1 black hole in my first post :)

cheers
Dave
 
  • #18
It isn't inherently always impossible to see a star being ripped apart in visible light since there is nothing that prevents such visible light from reaching us during that process. That is unless distance makes the event too dim or dust intervenes. But otherwise a person nearby would see the whole thing unraveling in all its glory in VS as well.


First time ever: scientists see jets as black hole swallows a star

They suggest that the lack of signal in the visible spectrum is probably a product of some dust sitting between us and Sw 1644+57, which absorbed the event's output in that area of the spectrum...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news...ts-see-jets-as-black-hole-swallows-a-star.ars

Please note that it is essential to separate accretion disk radiation and the star itself as it is being cannibalized. They are two totally temporally different and qualitatively separate phenomenon. One involves radiation produced by the star's material accelerated around the BH and producing GR and X-Ray radiation .The other observable phenomenon involves the star itself as it gradually loses material and luminosity until it final disappears and is no longer visible in any LS.

As long as the star itself hasn't gone beyond the BHEH its light will reach us. If it doesn't reach us or reaches us too faintly during the process it isn't because of BH gravity prevents it or because the visible light spectrum is being nullified during the event. It is because of extreme distance or intervening dust as the article below points out .


.
Here are images in visible light after the X-rays were detected.

On the left is his observation on April 1, and on the right on April 4. The position of GRB 110328A is circled. As you can see, it was pretty faint. It has apparently faded somewhat over the three day interval — which is expected; the initial event (a star getting torn apart! I can’t get over that!) released a huge flash of energy which faded over time. It’s hard to see in the two images because the burst looks about the same brightness, but the second observation had a longer exposure time (you can see fainter stars in it), so the source did fade.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...-witnessed-a-star-torn-apart-by-a-black-hole/

Electromagnetic Spectrum
Radio waves, visible light, X-rays, and all the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are fundamentally the same thing. They are all electromagnetic radiation.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
.




 
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  • #19
Radrook said:
It isn't inherently always impossible to see a star being ripped apart in visible light since there is nothing that prevents such visible light from reaching us during that process.

Don't know anyone who suggested that to be the case.
 
  • #20
This is an old article but it has an interesting diagram that shows 20 confirmed black hole binaries which compares the size of black hole/accretion disc with the companion star-

http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/faculty/orosz/web/ [Broken]
 
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  • #21
The energy of EM emissions from matter falling into a black hole are largely concentrated in the xray band.
 

1. How do we know that the picture is real?

Scientists used a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) to combine data from multiple telescopes around the world to create the image of the black hole. This technique allowed them to capture radio waves emitted by the superheated gas as it was being pulled into the black hole, providing proof of its existence.

2. What does the picture reveal about the black hole's behavior?

The picture shows that the black hole is actively feeding on a star, as evidenced by the bright jets of energy that are being emitted from the area around the black hole. This confirms theories about the feeding behavior of black holes and provides valuable insight into their role in the universe.

3. How far away is the black hole from Earth?

The black hole captured in the image is located in a galaxy called Messier 87, which is approximately 55 million light-years away from Earth. This means that the light we see in the image was emitted 55 million years ago, giving us a glimpse into the distant past.

4. Are there other black holes in the universe?

Yes, there are believed to be millions of black holes in the universe. They are formed when a massive star dies and collapses under its own gravity, creating a point of infinite density and zero volume. The black hole captured in the image is one of the largest known black holes, with a mass equivalent to 6.5 billion suns.

5. How does this image contribute to our understanding of black holes?

This image is a groundbreaking achievement in astrophysics, providing the first direct visual evidence of a black hole's existence. It also confirms many theories about the behavior and feeding habits of black holes, and opens up new avenues for research and exploration in the field of astrophysics.

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