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What does a black hole look like?

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Anonymous

9y ago
Updated: 8/16/2019

Short Answer:

Though a black hole does not emit light, it does distort light that passes nearby and as a result, if we ever got a clear look at a black hole, we would see not the blackness but the odd distortion it caused to the appearance of objects behind it. We do not, however, get a chance to see black holes clearly because they always seem to be in the process of devouring thousands of stars at the center of their galaxies. We do see that clearly because, as a black hole devours matter, it causes tremendous radiation from the matter as it is accelerated into the black hole.

Better Answer:

One can not see a black hole. No light ever exits a black hole. There is an "edge" of space around a black hole called the event horizon and nothing ever gets out once it passes that point, so there is no reflection from a black hole.

That said, there is a simple phenomenon that is basically like a shadow that allows one to "see" a black hole. If an observer is on the opposite side of a black hole from a distant set of stars, the star field will look like it has a distortion. It is not exactly like holding up a black ball in front of a bunch of stars because the black hole distorts light that passes near it. The gravity of the back hole causes a beam of light to bend towards it if it gets close, so light from the star field behind a black hole will appear distorted. Knowing this, a person could work backwards and figure out the cause of the distortion was a black hole and even tell something about the size and other properties of a black hole from the distortion.

That said, such a thing is never observed. In reality, black holes that we know about all have a million or billion stars around them all hugely disrupted and blazing so one can't actually see what it is they are surrounding. So, the fact that there are these examples of highly distorted stars emitting horrendous amounts of radiation at the center of many galaxies tells us there is a black hole causing the havoc.

The extraordinary nature of radiation coming from stars at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, tells us that we have our own black hole.

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9y ago

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