September 8, 2002
The Moon has changed phase thousands of times since the beginning of the cosmos, but only once did it shine on the night you arrived.
Too Close to a Black Hole
Birthday · September 8, 2002
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published September 8, 2002. Credit: Robert Nemiroff (MTU). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above are two computer generated images highlighting how strange things would look. On the left is a normal star field containing the constellation Orion. Notice the three stars of nearly equal brightness that make up Orion's Belt. On the right is the same star field but this time with a black hole superposed in the center of the frame. The black hole has such strong gravity that light is noticeably bent towards it - causing some very unusual visual distortions. In the distorted frame, every star in the normal frame has at least two bright images - one on each side of the black hole. In fact, near the black hole, you can see the whole sky - light from every direction is bent around and comes back to you. Black holes are thought to be the densest state of matter, and there is indirect evidence for their presence in stellar binary systems and the centers of globular clusters, galaxies, and quasars.
Image credit: Robert Nemiroff (MTU)