Animation Sizes Up the Biggest Black Holes
Any light crossing the event horizon – the black hole’s point of no return – becomes trapped forever, and any light passing close to it is redirected by the black hole’s intense gravity. Together, these effects produce a “shadow” about twice the size of the black hole’s actual event horizon.
The animation shows 10 supersized black holes that occupy center stage in their host galaxies, including the Milky Way and M87, scaled by the sizes of their shadows. Starting near the Sun, the camera steadily pulls back to compare ever-larger black holes to different structures in our solar system.
First up is 1601+3113, a dwarf galaxy hosting a black hole packed with the mass of 100,000 Suns. The matter is so compressed that even the black hole’s shadow is smaller than our Sun.
The black hole at the heart of our own galaxy, called Sagittarius A* (pronounced ay-star), boasts the weight of 4.3 million Suns based on long-term tracking of stars in orbit around it. It’s shadow diameter spans about half that of Mercury’s orbit in our solar system.
The animation shows two monster black holes in the galaxy known as NGC 7727. Located about 1,600 light-years apart, one weighs 6 million solar masses and the other more than 150 million Suns. Astronomers say the pair will merge within the next 250 million years.
At the animation’s larger scale lies M87’s black hole, now with a updated mass of 5.4 billion Suns. Its shadow is so big that even a beam of light – traveling at 670 million mph (1 billion kph) – would take about two and a half days to cross it.
-
0:59
Sambucha2
1 year agoBLACK HOLE SIZES 🕳
3 -
10:42
Mistervideo
1 year agoUniverse Size Comparison 2023 3d Animation Comparison Real Scale Comparison
190 -
4:21
Mistervideo
1 year agoUniverse Size Comparison _ 3d Animation Comparison _ Stars Real Scale Comparison
158 -
4:27
Shorts World
1 year agoUniverse Size Comparison | 3d Animation Comparison | Stars Real Scale Comparison 2023
42 -
1:38
SpaceCinema
1 year agoSuper Massive Black Hole Animation - Sagittarius A* [4K]
9 -
0:10
Beyond
1 year agoThe Largest Black Hole
3 -
1:43
saabysaabair
8 months agoUniverse’s Biggest Black Holes
501 -
3:00
AIartmaster
10 months agoSuper massive black holes AI
2 -
5:07
Galaxtic
9 months agoUniverse Size Comparison 3D
180 -
2:52
IFLScience
6 years agoHow Big Are Black Holes
4