Approaching the Black Hole

The first frame depicts the observer in empty space looking toward the constellation Orion. The three stars in Orion's belt are visible to the right of the center of the screen. Sirius can be seen as the brightest star in the sky below and to left of Orion's belt, and Betelgeuse is the reddish star just above Orion's belt.

As the movie progresses the observer moves toward the black hole. An odd diffuse glow of light appears in the center of the screen. Soon a black spot appears - the black hole itself. The black hole is almost completely dark - light cannot escape from it. Black holes do release a slight bit of light as they evaporate, as postulated by Hawking.

As the observer moves toward the black hole, the original star images appear pushed away from the black hole This is because the starlight that originally reached you is now strongly attracted toward the black hole and hence deflected away from you. Only starlight passing further from the black hole might now be attracted toward the black hole so that it is deflected to your eye.

Note also "new" dimmer images of stars become visible near the black hole. Here the strong gravity of the black hole has pulled another image of stars around the far side toward your eye. Soon there are two discernable images of everything in the sky. A secondary images of star can be identified with their corresponding primary image by noting that they can be connected by drawing a straight line on the sky through the center of the black hole and finding stars of like color.

As the computer generated animation continues, the observer stops just 42 kilometers from the black hole. The universe looks like a very strange place from here.

Next: Orbiting the black hole.


Play the movie segment: Approaching the black hole.
Play the next movie segment: Circling the black hole at some distance.
Go to the hypertext describing the next movie segment: Circling the black hole at some distance.
Peruse the American Journal of Physics Article on this subject.

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