Are balck holes Visible?

I was wondering if black holes are visible and if so anyone have any pictures? If they arent visible then how do we know they exist? Thanks.

Black holes are not visible, but scientists can detect them because, when they suck up the gas matter from space, they spin it round and round, so fast that the friction causes heat. Scientists have telescopes that can detect the heat waves.

[Edited on 18-2-2004 by JustAnIllusion]

you cant see black holes because light cant excape it so there is no light for you to see!! We can detect them by either their influence on nearby stars/planets or when a star or gas cloud or somthing gets sucked into the black hole, the matter gets accelerated very fast, near speed of light speed just before going in and it emits intense radiation. Scientists use this radiation to detect them.

Well, a black hole can't be seen, but if it is close to a star, the star gasses can be seen being sucked in. But for the most part a black hole itself can not be seen.

You can't see them in the usual way you 'see' other objects. They suck in all light/energy which is what you would normally be 'seeing', this is why they're called 'black' holes. Scientists know they're there by observing the effects they produce.

Two of the most common ways are:
1. To observe what happens when a black hole moves between us and another object in space. It would be something similar to an eclipse. The object we are viewing would seem to vanish momentarily while being blocked from our line of sight by the black hole.

2. To observe what happens when an object like a planet or star is being sucked into a black hole. Then you can see the spiraling matter as it goes into the hole.






How we detect black holes:
science.howstuffworks.com...

Black & White Holes Singularities
www.abovetopsecret.com...

See also:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 18-2-2004 by JustAnIllusion]

ware the the stuff go when a black hole gets it?

Originally posted by slayerfan
ware the the stuff go when a black hole gets it?

A black hole is also known as a singularity, because it's so small that's it's pretty much just a 'single' point in space. Things that get sucked into it are comrpessed into this incredibly small space.
EDITED spelling

[Edited on 18-2-2004 by Esoterica]

People need to think and stop calling them black holes. They are not holes at all, as a hole is commonly thought of. They may be a hole in the picture or an empty space[hole]. I dont think i need to talk about this to you people but a collapsed star is not a hole.
I hate wrong terminoligy. You can not travel through a collapsed star,you can not visit a collapsed star and the things that go into the gravitational field of a collapsed star are crushed and never to be seen again,until the star gives up its gravity and releases everything in some future time. Time travel is wrong,curiosity is wrong,,,It is like jumping into a volcano on earth and wondering what will happen. Good luck

Originally posted by ashley
People need to think and stop calling them black holes. They are not holes at all, as a hole is commonly thought of. They may be a hole in the picture or an empty space[hole]. I dont think i need to talk about this to you people but a collapsed star is not a hole.
I hate wrong terminoligy. You can not travel through a collapsed star,you can not visit a collapsed star and the things that go into the gravitational field of a collapsed star are crushed and never to be seen again,until the star gives up its gravity and releases everything in some future time. Time travel is wrong,curiosity is wrong,,,It is like jumping into a volcano on earth and wondering what will happen. Good luck

i dont think anyone actually thinks black holes are physical holes, although u might want to check out this thread which touched upon teh possibilty that they tear holes (they dont).
we call things what we do to 'bring them down to earth' dark matter, its called dark matter simply because we cant see it. the big bang was called that because it was sort of like an explosion. a black hole is called a hole because things go into it and dont come out. we can call it what we want, sounds nicer than 'place where things dont come out of'. "A rose by any other name..."
time travel isnt wrong. u can travel backwards in tiem, they have proved that. wormholes are a realistic possibilty, even natural ones (although they might have destroyed the universe by now).
the thing that really gets me is this 'curiousity is wrong' bit. thats a shame, curiousity is what keeps us going, its y we can have these discussions. curiousity is what keeps things alive.

and, to the original thought, black holes emit large amounts of X-rays, in little 'jets' that we can easily detect.

No, people do think black holes are holes.
Dark matter is also misnamed to sound cool,whats wrong with just matter.
A rose by any other name would still smell like a rose.
Time travel is easy....I tell you tomorrow is yesterday and you are so confused you have traveled in time..congratulations. Time is manmade and everyone knows it.
Your last thou...querry......curiosity is great but im afraid your substituting adventurisim for curiosity. Being curious like the monkey makes y0u a monkey.

dark matter is dark matter because we cannot explain it. once we find it, it is no longer dark matter.
so what if time is manmade (arguable)? a building is mad made, i can still get to my #in apartment. if its man made, its all the more easy to move thu it.
think about it. the universe moves in a chronological order, does it not? things happen. there has to be time for that.
and ur monkey thing, i dont no what to make of that, all i no is im curious and bananas are good.

Ok, this might sound stupid but--

How come light can't escape the gravitational pull of a black hole? Is it because it can act as a particle? If not, how can light, which I thought had no mass, be effected by gravity? Is it just because of the way that the black hole "bends" space? How does a black hole's gravity effect light, but not suck in the jet of x-rays emitted by the crap being ripped apart in the event horizon?

I took astronomy for 3 semesters in high school, but I guess I forgot to have my teacher explain how black holes effect light.

Bastard black holes.

nothing can escape a blackhole once it reaches the event horizon, or "point of no return." This is because the gravity made by a blackhole is so enormous that not even something traveling at the speed of light can resist it's gravity. I am not sure, so don't quote me on this, but it is my understanding that light is infact composed of some type of partical.

X-rays are the product of matter being pulled into the black hole, and again im not sure about this, but i do not believe that the X-rays actually reach the event horizon.

Dark Matter is Dark Matter because we cannot see it.

Anyway, science needs to get sexified.

nothing can escape a blackhole once it reaches the event horizon, or "point of no return." This is because the gravity made by a blackhole is so enormous that not even something traveling at the speed of light can resist it's gravity. I am not sure, so don't quote me on this, but it is my understanding that light is infact composed of some type of partical.

X-rays are the product of matter being pulled into the black hole, and again im not sure about this, but i do not believe that the X-rays actually reach the event horizon.

You are right, as far as I know. X-rays are the things that come out of the sucked objects, right?

Yes it it true that you can't see a black hole, but you can see and detect their influence on light or objects because of the immense gravitation they produce. This is a good site that explains everything.

Also, a lot of this is covered in my thread, �The Big Bang Cycle�.

well i read a post that had links here not more than few months back max, that says scientists have seen into dark matter patches and what they saw was confuseing due to fact that what was in these dark matter patches was mirrorcopys of near by galaxy's????

could it be a way into alternate dimensions?

My opinion is that dark matter patches are a tear in space time and show past and future galaxys of the exisiting galaxys that are near these dark matter tears??

Can you think of what an exact mirror of a near by galaxy is (if it aint alternat universe or future or past versions of the near by galaxy)

well i read a post that had links here not more than few months back max, that says scientists have seen into dark matter patches and what they saw was confuseing due to fact that what was in these dark matter patches was mirrorcopys of near by galaxy's????

could it be a way into alternate dimensions?

My opinion is that dark matter patches are a tear in space time and show past and future galaxys of the exisiting galaxys that are near these dark matter tears??

not to disagree with a nice theory, but i dont think so. the definition of dark matters is actually very simple - matter that is there and we can detect and must exist, but that we cant find, hence the name dark. once we discover it, it is no longer dark matter, because we no it. so, a dark matter patch is really a matter patch we cant 'see' yet.

Originally posted by IndridCold
I was wondering if black holes are visible and if so anyone have any pictures? If they arent visible then how do we know they exist? Thanks.

Already been answered, but yeah. They are basically detectable by the stuff they suck into themselves. In pictures, what you're actually seeing is gas that is being super heated as it makes it way into the center of the black hole...