Why Do Black Holes Look Like This?!

Black holes look really weird because of the way light bends around them. This video explains how that all works and why black hole images look the way they do.

Nick Lucid - Host, Writer, Editor, Animator
Em Lucid - Producer
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VIDEO ANNOTATIONS/CARDS

Black Hole Misconceptions:

Planetary Rings:
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RELATED YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Vertasium on Black Hole Optics:

Dr Becky on Black Hole Image:

Coding Train:
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LINKS TO COMMENTS

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IMAGE/VIDEO CREDITS

NASA Black Hole Graphics:

Sagittarius A*

M87*

NASA Simulation:
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TIME CODES

00:00 Cold Open
00:36 Accretion Disks
01:17 Doppler Beaming
01:47 Optics
03:02 Gravity Bends Light
04:15 Innermost Stable Circular Orbit (ISCO)
04:52 Photon Orbits
05:51 Black Hole Shadow
06:45 Closing Thoughts
07:11 Featured Comment

[SplashTasty]

I seen your post about your general concern for the effort you put into your videos and your metrics but SERIOUSLY, don't fret. You've got a unique and entertaining style of science communication. do NOT stop doing what you are doing.

[byamboy]

I can't believe how complex this all is and how easily it slipped right into my consciousness in an 8 min video! You are a freaking talent!

[firwlkr]

Your VPN advertisement is the most truthful and honest one I have watched in YouTube. Excellent.

[artdonovandesign]

_This_ was a great episode, as always. Thanks, Nick!

[marcusscience]

For the part about some black holes being less dense than air, a black hole’s Schwarzchild radius is proportional to its mass, but the radius of a constant density object is proportional to the cube root of its mass. As mass increases, the radius of a black hole grows faster than if it was at a constant density, and hence its density decreases. Some of those supermassive black holes have grown so much they became less dense than air.

[Deezy]

Hey man. I absolutely love how you're able to explain this stuff to make it EXTREMELY understandable.

You're doing great, do not stop.

[IllIl]

This was an INCREDIBLY cool episode. I kinda "knew" that the distortions were from optics, but having it all spelled out has made me realise how much cooler it actually is :D

[Culando]

It's crazy how physicists were able to create such an accurate model of how black holes work and would look like when all we had were stars being thrown around by them and a ton of math.

[MrHichammohsen]

Lmao the Flat accretion disker joke was BRILLIANT! our sponsor for tod... ohh

[RFGSwiss]

4:07 the saturn image was genious! thanks!

[classifiedveteran]

In the movie Interstellar _(which is quite good aside for its few flaws and sudden dive into pure fantasy near the end)_ the slingshot maneuver around the black hole always peeved me.

First they'd vaporize from skimming so close to the acretion disk, it's basically like doing a low-earth orbit, but with the sun. 🤔 _(So a low-sun orbit?)_ 🤷‍♂️

They'd also be bombarded with subatomic particles, radiation, and atoms flung at nearly lightspped. It'd basically a very messy fusion reactor. So, even if they somehow survived, the lethal dose of radiation would certainly be achieved, and they'd be very much like those famous Chernobyl firefighters.☢️ _If not worse..._

Passing through that photon sphere, on one's way to visiting the inside a black hole, would be like trying to run through those pesky "lightsaber/laser walls" in the end of The Phantom Menace. There's more than just visible light too, such as gamma rays. So you're back to poking the Demon Core with a screwdriver, which is a stupid game that only wins you stupid prises.

There are so many things that'd kill you from the accretion disk by playing Ring Around The Rosy with a black hole. It's a seething chaotic region of relativistic violence.

Simply put, black holes don't play around.

[pheargoth]

I absoloutely love your videos, Nick.
Your pressentation and diagrams are top notch, and your ability to simplify complex concepts is amazing.👌👌

[oldieman]

"Flat Accretion Disker".... cracked me up, thanks. For years now I have enjoyed the way you present the information, because it engages me and so I learn. Never got past year 12 due to learning difficulties and lack of engagement, so your videos have been a breath of fresh air for me. Thanks again.

[SonicImmersion_]

I hadn't known about the photon ring. Makes sense now, with your description, that there would be a gap between the visible portion of the accretion disk of matter and the photon ring.

I also like how you showed the photons orbiting the black hole, and some of the outer ones gradually escaping, as what we see for the inner photon ring

[doubled]

"Black holes are the blackest black that ever blacked" Love it

[XEinstein]

1:19 YES!!!



BTW Nick, it's been since we had a 'superzoom'. You're long overdue for one of those.

[markpats]

"Flat accretion disker" ....that was genuinely funny !!! 😊

[naveenrreddy]

A lot of things clear in this video. Thank you, amazing content as always.
Please talk about naked singularity in any future video please. Its kind of intriguing..

[sadanyagci]

The first HONEST and ACCURATE commercial for a VPN that I have ever seen! Thank you for your ad service. Finally, no false information on VPN products.

[petersage]

I love Question Clone's shirt in this episode. One of my most intellectually stimulating conversations with my father was whether a society with a purely metaphorical language could develop the technology depicted in "The Children of Tama".