In this frame of the new view, a first black hole weighing 200 million solar masses is in the foreground. Its gravity distorts the light on the accumulation disk of a smaller black pet hole almost directly behind it, creating this surreal view. Different colors for storage disks make it easier to track everyone’s contributions. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
A pair of black holes that orbit the Sun’s mass millions of times perform a hypnotic deux step in a new GODMOTHER view. The film follows how black holes distort and redirect the light emanating from the hot gas vortex – called the storage disk – that surrounds each one.
Viewed close to the orbital plane, each accumulation disk acquires a characteristic double appearance. But as one passes in front of the other, the gravity of the foreground black hole turns his partner into a rapidly changing sequence of arcs. These distortions manifest as light from both disks navigates through the tangled fabric of space and time near black holes.
Explore how the extreme gravity of two supermassive black holes orbiting distorts our vision. In this view, the bright, hot gas disks that surround both black holes, displayed in red and blue, to better track the light source. The red disk orbits the larger black hole, which weighs 200 million times the mass of our Sun, while its smaller blue companion weighs in at half. The magnification of each black hole reveals multiple, increasingly distorted images of his partner. Watch to find out more. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
“We see two supermassive black holes, a larger one with 200 million solar masses and a smaller companion that weighs in half,” said Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. visualization. “These are the types of black hole binary systems in which we believe both members could maintain accumulation disks for millions of years.”
The storage discs have different colors, red and blue, to facilitate the tracking of light sources, but the choice also reflects reality. The hotter gas emits light closer to the blue end of the spectrum, and the material orbiting smaller black holes has stronger gravitational effects that produce higher temperatures. For these masses, both storage disks would actually emit most of their UV light, with the blue disk reaching a slightly higher temperature.
This image shows the distorted image of a larger supermassive black hole (red disk) when it passes seen almost directly behind an accompanying black hole (blue disk) with half its mass. The gravity of the black hole in the foreground turns its partner into a surreal collection of arches. The inserts highlight the areas where one black hole produces a complete but distorted image of the other. The light on the storage disks produces these self-similar images as it travels through the tangled fabric of space and time near both black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
Such visualizations help scientists imagine the fascinating consequences of the mirror of fun of extreme gravity. The new video doubles as a previous one produced by Schnittman, which features a solitary black hole from different angles.
Seen almost horizontally, the storage discs appear visibly brighter on one side. Gravitational distortion changes the light pathways that come from different parts of the discs, producing the distorted image. The rapid movement of the gas near the black hole alters the brightness of the disk by a phenomenon called boost Doppler – an effect of Einstein’s theory of relativity that illuminates the part that rotates towards the viewer and dims the part that rotates.
The visualization also shows a more subtle phenomenon called relativistic aberration. Black holes appear smaller as they approach the viewer and larger as they move away.
A front view of the system highlights the distorted image (insertion) of the smaller black hole of its larger partner. To reach the room, the smaller black hole must bend the light from its red companion by 90 degrees. The accumulation disk of this secondary image appears as a line, which means that we see a side view of the red companion – while we see it simultaneously from above. A secondary image of the blue disk also forms just outside the bright ring of light closest to the larger black hole. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
These effects disappear when you view the system from above, but new features appear. Both black holes produce small images of their partners orbiting each orbit. Looking closer, it is clear that these images are in fact marginal views. To produce them, the light in the black holes must be redirected by 90 degrees, which means that we observe the black holes from two different perspectives – face and edge – at the same time.
“A striking aspect of this new visualization is the self-similar nature of the images produced by gravitational lenses,” Schnittman explained. “The magnification of each black hole reveals multiple, increasingly distorted images of his partner.”
This image shows the distorted image of a larger supermassive black hole (red disk) when it passes almost directly behind an accompanying black hole (blue disk) with half its mass. The gravity of the black hole in the foreground turns its partner into a surreal collection of arches. These distortions occur as light from the storage discs navigates through the tangled fabric of space and time near black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
Schnittman created the visualization by calculating the path traveled by light rays from the storage disks as they made their way through the distorted space-time around the black holes. On a modern desktop computer, the calculations needed to make movie frames would have taken about a decade. So Schnittman teamed up with Goddard scientist Brian P. Powell to use the Discover supercomputer at NASA’s Center for Climate Simulation. Using only 2% of the 129,000 Discover processors, these calculations lasted about a day.
Astronomers expect it to be able to detect in the not-too-distant future gravitational waves – ripples in space-time – produced when two supermassive black holes in a system similar to Schnittman described the spiral together and join.