Interesting thought about black holes

[iRaid]

Well since we will never see something go into a black hole, won't we see everything the black hole tries to swallow around it? So wouldn't it be possible to see a black hole since a bunch of things would be around the event horizon.

Answers are appreciated.

 

[Sakha]

Thats pretty much how astronomers spot black holes. The gasses that are being swallowed by the hole emmit X-ray radiation which is mainly what they look when searching for black holes.

 

[Nabeshin]

Thats pretty much how astronomers spot black holes. The gasses that are being swallowed by the hole emmit X-ray radiation which is mainly what they look when searching for black holes.

Yes, but this doesn't have anything to do with time dilation. This is simply normal matter accreting onto the black hole. By the time things start redshifting and slowing down near the event horizon, it's likely that these signals would no longer be observable.

 

[iRaid]

I was pretty sure they haven't spotted black holes from the show I saw on tv..

 

[Sakha]

Actually they do have spotted black holes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_holes

 

[Chronos]

Direct detection of black holes is, by definition, basically impossible. Detection of accretion discs radiationg unbelievable amounts of high energy radiation is more than possible [e.g., quasars] Black holes can also be detected by gravitational effects in binary systems and lensing. While not direct detection, the evidence is fairly compelling.

 

[iRaid]

Hmm tv shows like to trick me I guess :p

 

[George Jones]

Well since we will never see something go into a black hole, won't we see everything the black hole tries to swallow around it? So wouldn't it be possible to see a black hole since a bunch of things would be around the event horizon.

Answers are appreciated.

There is a good chance that, within a decade or so, we should be able to "image" in this way the astrophysical black hole at the centre of our galaxy. See

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portrait-of-a-black-hole

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0607279.