**Black Holes in Living Color:

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A supermassive black hole residing in the hub of the nearby galaxy called NGC 4438. Known as a peculiar galaxy because of its unusual shape, NGC 4438 is in the Virgo Cluster, 50 million light-years from Earth.

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Lying at the center of galaxy M87, a giant black hole has swallowed up matter equal to 2 billion times our Sun's mass. M87 is 50 million light-years from Earth.

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The black hole-powered core of a nearby active galaxy 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus.

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GRO J1655-40 (in blue) is the second so-called 'microquasar' discovered in our Galaxy. Microquasars are black holes of about the same mass as a star.

Source: www.cbsnews.com...

What can one say that isn't obvious. Just stunning to look at. I never thought that there was so much color around them. I always thought Dark and Ugly looking. I guess for TV/Movies.

The sourec has more pics. Take a look and enjoy. If you can add anything, please do but I think this is one of those threads that speak for its self.

Take care and enjoy them all.

Wow those pictures are awesome. I still think that black holes have more to them than what we currently theorize. With the new version of string theory and the possibility of extra-dimensions, we could possibly be looking at either failed stargates or possibly vortexes into another universe. There is just SO much that we do not know about our universe that it seems strange for Black Holes to JUST be a massive gravity well that is like a cosmic "trash" compactor.

Star and Flag from me! I'd certainly love to get a big rendition of one of these and have it as my wallpaper or heck even as a scroll for my wall. I really enjoy what these artists do when giving space it's colors whether it's what we know it to look like or imagine.

reply to post by MystiqueAgent


Im not sure what you are referring to, as to artist doing etc. These four I posted are photos-released by NASA. Please check the source link for the others-which at least one is an artist rendition.

Well I always thought that most images come in the form of black and white and are usually touches up by an artists, then there are artists renditions such as these. [2media.nowpublic.net...] that are made by artists that I do believe aren't affiliated with NASA. I guess this time the images came in color? As I thought they used to not be able to do such a thing.

reply to post by MystiqueAgent


The last image in the OP is an artist rendering. The rest are actual photographs. Mind you, they may have been photoshopped to enhance the color. However, as long as their have been color cameras astronomers have been taking color photographs. Generally speaking, most planetary pictures will state 'false color' additions.

reply to post by links234


I thought the last pic looked like an artists rendition. How do they know the density of the black holes?

reply to post by tarifa37


Fancy math. Namely observing the gravitational effects the body has on another body.

Explained here.

I thought their might be some discussion on the last one as to what it was.

And, I agree. I saw it is an artist work. But, going to the source article link, then to picture # 8 and you will see this below the photo:

Black Holes in Living Color # 8

GRO J1655-40 (in blue) is the second so-called 'microquasar' discovered in our Galaxy. Microquasars are black holes of about the same mass as a star.
(Photo: European Space Agency, NASA, Felix Mirabel and the Institute for Astronomy and Space Physics/Conicet of Argentina)

I don't know, you tell me? lol

I would bet its a paintjob. Maybe we should call them on it...... say HEY....

reply to post by links234


Ah, Okay thank you for the insight well...after reading the other replies as well I'm left scratching my head a bit, I think I'll just take the safe right and see that I like all the color added to the space pictures

at first they said Nothing can escape a black hole!
now their is the plume?
see pic's above.
Black holes are not real!

reply to post by buddha


You bring up a very good point. I can't believe I didn't come up with that. There does seem to be a lot of material around them.

Maybe someone can explain that. I would have to say that we are use to the movie concept of a black hole and not a real one.

Can someone please explain to me how they know the distance of these objects.
50 million light years
I mean how in the world can they know that? That means the object we're looking at probably doesn't even exist any more. It might have moved, disappeared or changed like 49.9 million years ago since we are now only seeing it’s light reaching us.
What we see now is so far in the past then that everything we know about the universe is wrong.
Outdated… 50 million years ago.

Am I just not understanding this??

reply to post by Nightfury


I hear ya and I'm with ya.

You actually worded it nicely-the issue.

This stuff could have been wiped out and rejuvinated by the time we see it (maybe even twice).

Messes with our minds and what we think we know.

Information on the artistically rendered object: GRO J1655-40: NASA's Chandra Answers Black Hole Paradox

As for the plume's of matter; When a massive object, like a star, or several stars, are being ripped apart and experiencing increased gravity they create an enormous amount of energy. The closer to the center of the black hole, the greater the effect of gravity, the black hole is also spinning, so the matter not only falls but orbits at an extremely high speed. This causes friction which results in heat, a lot of it. This also creates an amazing amount of energy, x-rays and gamma rays, some of which can 'escape' the black hole in plumes of matter that are light-years long, travelling near the speed of light, these plumes are just condensed rays of energy. Think death rays or lasers.

They don't really escape the black hole in the sense that they enter and then leave, they're nearing the event horizon without ever actually going into the black hole.

The pictures above are examples of active galactic nuclei, which are just black holes that are actively feeding off of surrounding gas and matter. Unlike our somewhat inactive Milky Way center.

reply to post by links234



Thank you. Wow.

All I can say now is...

Class over.

Star for you as it is well deserved. Thanks for making it understandable-to me at least.

I just checked out that link you put in your post. I put that site in my favorites right away. Nice.