How can we see what is invisible?
Black holes are not easy to see in the dark cosmic night, but astronomers can find them by analyzing their gravitational effects on
matter,
light and
spacetime.
The
featured image shows an illustration that combines a simulation of a black hole binary system in its final "
death-dance" with an astrophotography image of the
Tarantula Nebula in the background.
Even though black holes don't emit light, they distort the path of light rays, acting like a
gravitational lens.
As a result, the nebula appears extremely distorted, forming
Einstein rings and
multiple images.
Tarantula Nebula lies in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is one of the
satellite galaxies of the Milky Way,
160,000 light-years away.
That is more than
1,000 times closer than any of the binary black hole mergers detected
so far.
We'll probably never detect a merger so close to home!