In this frame of the new visualization, a supermassive black hole weighing 200 million solar masses lies in the foreground. Gravity distorts light from the growth disk of a smaller black hole, almost directly behind it, creating this surreal view. Different colors for the accrual slides make it easier to track the contributions of each. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
A few orbiting black holes millions of times around the sun’s mass performs a hypnotic pas de deux into a new NASA visualization. The film follows how the black holes distort and divert the light coming from the maelstrom of hot gas, called a growth disk.
Viewed from near the track level, each growth disk has a distinctive double hump. But when one goes before the other, the seriousness of the foreground is black hole transforms its mate into a rapidly changing series of arcs. These distortions play out as light from both disks navigates the jumbled dust of space and time near the black holes.
Discover how the extreme gravity of two supermassive black holes twists around our view. In this visualization, slides surround bright, hot, burning gas both black holes, which are shown in red and blue to better detect the light source. The red disk orbits the larger black hole, which weighs 200 million times the mass of our sun, while the smaller blue companion weighs half as much. As you zoom into each black hole, more and more distorted images of his partner are displayed. See to find out more. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
“We see two supermassive black holes, one larger with 200 million solar masses and one smaller companion that weighs half as much,” said Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These are the kind of black-hole binary systems where we think both members can hold growth disks for millions of years.”
The growth discs have different colors, red and blue, to make it easier to find the light sources, but the choice also reflects reality. Warmer gas gives light closer to the blue end of the spectrum, and materials orbiting smaller black holes experience heavier gravitational effects that produce higher temperatures. For these masses, both growth disks will emit most of their light in the UV, with the blue disk being slightly higher.
This image shows the skewed view of a larger supermassive black hole (red disk) when viewed past, almost directly behind a black hole (blue disk) with half its mass. The seriousness of the black hole in the foreground transforms its mate into a surrealistic collection of arches. Inserts highlight areas where one black hole produces a complete but distorted image of the other. Light from the accrual disks produces these similar images as it moves through the cluttered dust of space and time near both black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
Visualizations like these help scientists to imagine the fascinating effects of extreme gravity’s funhouse mirror. The new video was duplicated on an earlier one produced by Schnittman showing a lone black hole from different angles.
The growth disks look almost brighter on one side. Gravitational distortion changes the light paths coming from different parts of the disks, producing the skewed image. The rapid movement of gas near the black hole changes the brightness of the disk through a phenomenon called Doppler boosting – an effect of Einstein’s theory of relativity that brightens and turns the side facing the viewer.
The visualization also shows a more subtle phenomenon called relativistic aberration. The black holes appear smaller as they approach the viewer and larger as they move away.
A view of the system shows the distorted image (insert) of the smaller black hole of its larger companion. To reach the camera, the smaller black hole must bend 90 degrees from its red companion. The growth disk of this secondary image appears as a line, which means that we see a border view of the red companion – while at the same time seeing it from above. A secondary image of the blue disk also forms just outside the bright light ring near the larger black hole. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
These effects disappear when you see the system from above, but new features appear. Both black holes produce small images of their mates circling around them. If we look closer, it is clear that these images are actually a view. To manufacture it, the light from the black holes must be redirected 90 degrees, which means that we observe the black holes simultaneously from two different perspectives.
“A striking aspect of this new visualization is the similar nature of the images produced by gravity lens,” Schnittman explained. “To zoom into every black hole reveals several, increasingly distorted images of his mate.”
This image shows the skewed view of a larger supermassive black hole (red disk) when it passes almost directly behind a black hole (blue disk) with half its mass. The seriousness of the black hole in the foreground transforms its mate into a surrealistic collection of arches. These distortions play out as light moves from the accumulation slides through the tangled web of space and time near the black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell
Schnittman created the visualization by calculating the path of light rays from the accretion slides as they moved through the skewed space-time around the black holes. On a modern desktop computer, the calculations needed to make the film frames would take about a decade. So Schnittman, along with Goddard computer scientist Brian P. Powell, used the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. With only 2% of Discover’s 129,000 processors, these calculations took about a day.
Astronomers expect to be able to detect in the not-too-distant future gravity waves – wrinkles in space-time – produced when two supermassive black holes in a system much like the one that Schnittman coils and merges together.