"if I Loved You Less, I Might Be Able To Talk About It More"

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

I read that Grief is a derived word

A word that stemmed from the Latin word gravis.

Gravis - Heavy.

A weight that we've to carry on our own

Because there's only I in Grief.

Most often there are no exit wounds.

It tears your skin and lodges within.

Sometimes we learn to live with it.

Sometimes we have to cut ourselves open and let it out.

And when there are exit wounds,

You've to be courageous enough to let it pass through you.

Tear open your skin twice.

There's no Us in Grief.

I can only sit next to you and hold your hand

While you're hurting.

Hoping you'll pull through.

And then help you stitch your exit wounds.

to finding;

hands reaching out towards each other in the depths of the sea, a lone lighthose standing in the midst of the ocean, waves that roar and grow only taller, the sea spray and the salty breeze kissing your face, odd things washing up onto shore, letters written in cursive, effortless script, beholding the words of a lover.

One of us is dead.

It's dark outside, it's dark inside

I woke up from the crash without you beside.

It's dark outside, it's dark inside

All I can feel is my hand covered in blood that's dried.

A blaze of light, an ear-splitting screech

Before I could grasp, you were out of reach.

A blaze of light, an ear-splitting screech

While we desperately try to hold on to each.

The world upended, everything still

What just happened? Was it real or just a drill?

The world upended, everything still

A feeling down my spine, is it blood or just a chill?

I lay there, feeling the time cease

Exhausted as the pain increased.

I lay there, feeling the time cease

Wishing I could just sleep in peace.

Days skip ahead, Weeks skip ahead,

You don't see the tears I shed.

Days skip ahead, Weeks skip ahead,

You don't hear a word I said.

I lose count, Time skips ahead,

And I realize one of us is dead.

writing prompts! all about night edition

hands are cold but feet unmoving, watching magic in the night

I didn’t mean to say it in my head and I didn’t mean to whisper it at night

it’s nearly night, frost creeping in on silent feet

it’s the song of night that draws me in

at night, when I’m alone, I look up and I can see the stars

a lantern far away glimmers and I can run away into the night

take me to a place in the middle of the night when the stars shine brighter as the sky turns slowly lighter

in the coolness of the night, send the shadows into flight

But as I’m walking forward, I’m walking into the night

in the heartland, where the night creeps in solemnly

you bought tomorrow and banished the night

if I ever think about you at night, if I whisper your name so soft

make a little more color in a lightened up night

and the night was upon us as the dark came creeping in, do you remember?

sometimes I dread the night, and feel so bitter

if the night can hold my hand and if the shadows are my friends I guess I’m alright

I can’t see the moon against the brightness of night

waiting for the light to untie night’s strings and the sky to come undone

the night was ebbing in and out like the sea

I am the power, I am the night

the past that haunts and fears that slide around in the back of my brain at night

like the closing of a story, the night rolls across the page

which is more lovely, the night or the day?

late night hurting, fever’s chill, I want a word, I need a will

let me stich your constellations onto the quilt of my night sky

A CELESTIAL INSECURITY

Is the moon envious of the sun?

And it's radiance that cannot be outdone?

Is that why she hides behind the earth?

Calls it an eclipse but, doubting her worth.

What does she see when she looks into the lake?

Her molten silver face or the distortion that ripples make?

Is this why poets always write about her desolate beauty?

Because she's more like us than any character from a movie.

A celestial body far far away

Like all our insecurities in display

How many times have we envied others radiance,

And hid away from an audience?

Doubting our worth, causing self-esteem distortion

By looking at a person's life only in portion?

So like her, we go through phases

And like her, we grow through phases.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus: First Part (XXV) (tr. J.B. Leishman)

Starry Night ⭐

Lying down on our grassy lawn,

Stars arranged like they're drawn,

Little fingers intertwined,

Playing on loop Seeing blind.

Then, you stand up to light your cigar,

That's when I see a shooting star.

I see your face through lighters flame,

And realize both are the same.

(04.12.20)

Attempt at a prompt from @creativepromptsforwriting 's December prompts.

Never felt more seen.

"Dark academic?" More like "someone please help me holy shit I can't continue living like this and the only thing keeping me from falling off my rocker is literature."

#it feels like home

i broke into ur brain just to call u out in this quiz (but in a soft way). how does it feel to be loved by u?