Black hole As a dense celestial body in the universe, it often represents horror and unknown . It is like a giant beast hidden in the abyss, hiding in various locations in the universe, waiting for the "prey" to come to your door.
Art concept map of black hole
But even though we know that black holes are so terrible, humans still can't suppress their curiosity and try their best to find black holes, or observe such strange celestial bodies. With the disclosure of the first black hole photo, people found that the black hole did not seem to be completely "black", and its outside is actually of red .
So, why are black holes red? Why did scientists say that Einstein is right again after finding a black hole? The answers actually all come from the supercomputer behind the black hole.
Human's first black hole photo
Why is black hole red?
I believe many people have seen this black hole photo. This is a photo that scientists have spent a lot of effort to wash out. The prototype of is the black hole in the M87 galaxy 55 million light years away from the earth.
Judging from the photos, the color of the black hole is not pitch black. In addition to the center of , the outside is red , which looks like a "circle of fire" from afar. Many people joked that the black hole was named incorrectly, and it should be called "red hole" .
Black hole emitting dazzling red light
So, why is the periphery of the black hole red? What exactly is this red part? This has to start with the mechanism of black hole swallowing stars .
In most of us, black holes have a very big appetite, and No celestial body that reaches its domain can escape its gravity, and will slowly approach it and be eaten .
For black holes, it will divide its food into "three or six or nine levels". Small celestial bodies like planets can be eaten in just a few bites. If the prey delivered to the door is a star, the black hole can only chew it slowly and then swallow .
Schematic diagram of the scope of influence of black hole
In this process, the components on the surface of the star will form an accretion gas stream, , and these gas streams will gather at the periphery of the black hole, and follow it to rotate and move .
Scientists call this peripheral part accretion disk . Therefore, the "red" part of the black hole we see outside, is actually the accretion disk , which proves that the black hole is swallowing stars.
Schematic diagram of the structure around the black hole
As for why this accretion disk is red instead of other colors, the explanation given by scientists is that this is because we choose to use red to present the light captured by the black hole . After all, the "telescope" that takes photos of black holes is not an optical telescope in the traditional sense, but a radio telescope.
In this case, what it collects is not "visible light", but submillimeter wave . This submillimeter wave itself has no color, and in order to make it more obvious to everyone, scientists used to express it in the process of processing data and washing photos.
turned out to be a "photo fraud"
Therefore, the accretion disk outside the black hole can be red, green, blue, or purple. It depends on how the scientists deal with . But generally speaking, they will choose to use the most eye-catching red to represent it, because red seems to show the "flattering" of a black hole.
You should know that the gas flow outside it is the perfect evidence that it is in eating, and this red can also represent its "pleasant mood" when eating .
Concept of black holes swallowing stars
Speaking of this, everyone should understand why it cannot be changed to "red hole", because this red color was originally given by humans and has nothing to do with the black hole itself .
Next, let’s take a look at another question, that is, why scientists say Einstein is right again after confirming the black hole.
Scientific master Einstein
Why is Einstein right again?
Einstein Although he has been dead for many years, his legend is circulating everywhere in the world. As for why Einstein is right again, is closely related to the birth history of the black hole concept .
In fact, black holes were not suddenly discovered by humans. Their outlines have existed for a long time, and then as science progresses, it gradually becomes clear. From a certain perspective, is almost synchronized with the development of modern physics. After all, after the discovery of gravity in Newton , it laid the groundwork for the subsequent discovery of black holes.
Art concept map of black hole
By the 18th century, Laplace , based on Newton's theory of gravity and light's particle theory, proposed that there is such a star in the universe. has a density similar to the earth, but its diameter is 250 times that of the sun. In this case, the gravity of the star is very powerful, and even powerful photons cannot escape. When photon did not swallow it, it became an unobservable celestial body, also known as " dark star " .
At that time, people's discussion of black holes had already taken shape, but Newton's absolute space-time theory was difficult to describe this mysterious celestial body. It was not until Einstein's general theory of relativity that scientists correctly and clearly understood the situation near black holes for the first time. And according to relevant information, Einstein also predicted the existence of black holes.
General relativity is a theory that describes gravity interactions
After that, based on general relativity, scientists portrayed some characteristics of space-time inside black holes. pointed out that although it does not have a surface composed of matter, it has a defined visual interface . This world is like a "bottomless pit" that will swallow all the falling matter.
To sum up, Einstein was indeed right again. As he expected, black holes do exist in the universe, and their characteristics are almost the same as humans imagined.
Of course, in addition to black holes, Einstein has many amazing prophecies. If you are interested, you can learn about it. After his death, many prophecies were confirmed. Because of this, people often suspect that he is an "alien" .
Conceptual Map of Black Hole
Finally, let’s talk about what the “supercomputer” is called the answer and what is the relationship between it and the black hole. What is the supercomputer behind the black hole of
?
supercomputer is actually supercomputer . These supercomputers will simulate the appearance of a black hole under the reasonable operation of scientists.
For example, a black hole picture was created in the famous brain-burning movie "Interstellar", which caused heated discussion among people. The prototype of this picture, , is actually the appearance of a black hole simulated by scientists in the 1960s.
The image of black holes in "Interstellar"
Therefore, the various black hole pictures that everyone has seen on the Internet before, is actually created by scientists using supercomputers for simulation. You may think that these photos are all fake photos and are "fictional".
In fact, except for black hole pictures, many pictures of cosmic scenes are computer-simulated, , such as , the panoramic image of , . After all, humans do not have the ability to directly observe the entire Milky Way from the perspective of God, so they can only use computers to simulate.
Our common Milky Way pictures
It is worth mentioning that even if the computing power of supercomputers is already very powerful, it is very difficult to simulate a very accurate black hole model .
Previously, a scientific research team used California Institute of Technology's supercomputer to create a model from the situation of multiple black hole simulations. spent nearly 0,000 hours of calculation time in order to create this model.
In short, supercomputers are an indispensable tool for humans to understand the path of black holes in depth, so it is hailed as the answer hidden behind black holes. So, did the first black hole photo taken by humans also use supercomputers?
The performance is far superior to that of traditional computers. If you want to take photos of black holes, you first need to use the extremely sensitive radio telescope , but under the same caliber, the resolution of the radio telescope is not as good as that of optical telescopes. Therefore, in order to improve resolution, scientists found radio interference technology, , which makes the angular resolution of the telescope array higher and the sensitivity is higher.
It is obvious that under this demand, there must be more than one telescope involved in the shooting. In order to successfully shoot, people have expanded it into an international plan. has allowed 8 stations around the world to participate in the shooting of .
Eight radio telescopes participated in the shooting
Therefore, during the shooting process, a massive amount of data was naturally obtained. , and these data are to be summarized together for unified analysis and processing.
During the analysis and processing process, the supercomputer plays an irreplaceable role in . It should be noted that in the process of summarizing and computing this huge data, no mistake can occur, because any small deviation will affect the final result.
Black hole photo is a
nested by a series of sub-halos. To sum up, the first black hole photo is not actually "taken out". is an generated by a supercomputer with its powerful ability to calculate. I believe that in the future, supercomputers can bring more "universe surprises" to mankind!
