Bright light from black holes found to be caused by particle shock waves Scientists have reported a "huge leap forward" in the understanding of light and other electromagnetic radiation emitted by black holes using NASA's newly deployed $188m space telescope IXPE. Beams of electrons smash into slower-moving particles causing a shock wave which results in electromagnetic radiation across frequency …
It's the Ford T principle: Any color you want, as long as it is black...
Also, as already said, the radiation isn't emitted by the black hole, but by the accretion disk of matter ripped apart and (messily) swallowed by the black hole.
BTW those accretion disks show how old those structures actually are: Nowadays nobody uses disks anymore I'm told, they use streaming services...
While black holes are indeed black they are also some of the brightest objects in the universe or at least the accretion disc is, being accelerated to relativistic speeds it gets "quite warm" and glows rather brightly across a very broad spectrum.
Black holes are not big space vacuum cleaners, it's actually not that easy for matter to get from the accretion disc to past the event horizon - for matter to get dragged in it need to lose momentum so it can drop into a lower orbit, this happens by collisions and will also cause some matter to be ejected form the disc at the same time which is why some black holes have huge jets of matter (apparently) coming from the axis of rotation.
Matter is not "destroyed" when it enters a black hole, that would be against the law (conservation of mass), it's just beyond any access.
Hawking radiation on the other hand is very faint and on a very narrow spectrum.
but I doubt that it feels very well after undergoing spaghettification.
but I doubt that it feels very well after undergoing spaghettification.
For most baryonic matter that is true, however for Pastafarians spaghettification is the ultimate accolade to His Great Noodliness and precedes ascension to Pasta Heaven (which is complete with beer volcanoes and strippers, natch...)
What is beyond the event horizon is purely conjecture and is (given current science) impossible to know. A point mass singularity is by definition a no dimensional entity - it has no measurable width, height or depth.
The accretion disc has thickness so is definitely a 3D structure.
Betcha it'll be 3 dimensional space not a zero dimensional singularity!
As to how you'd find out....
The universe outside a black hole is affected by the contents of a black hole, this is true whether you think of space being bent, or some sort of black-hole 'gravity'. Information from inside is coming to the outside. So information CAN travel faster than light, it must be. The theory that information cannot travel faster than light can be discounted as provably false.
Those black holes will all have a wobble, and scattering patterns and all manner of physical effects. Effects that depend on the inside of the black hole, behind the event horizon.
So, the obvious question: What pattern would you look for that would determine the dimensionality of the contents of the black hole?
" Information from inside is coming to the outside. "
Err, no. That's the whole point. *Nothing* comes from the inside to the outside. Inside, space is so bent, that there is no direction which is "out" (well there is, but it's backwards in time). Famously, "a black hole has no hair". That is, a black hole is _completely_ described by three vector quantities (position, momentum, and angular momentum), and two or three scalar quantities (mass, charge, and magnetic monopole moment if that exists).
The black hole no-hair *conjecture* is false. The black holes external properties relate to its internal properties and its internal properties relate to its external properties.
So, for example, the position of things inside the black hole is a property of the position of the outside of the black hole. If it were otherwise, you could not ensure the inside stays inside the event horizon. Black holes can merge, they spin and move together. THE INSIDE MUST MOVE WITH THE OUTSIDE, THE OUTSIDE MUST MOVE WITH THE INSIDE in order to be the correct side of the event horizon.
So, the event horizon isn't the magical firewall, and fine texture details is available.
It won't be zero dimensional in there, it will be 3+ spacial dimensions because the inside has to keep its position in 3 dimensions relative to the outside. So it may have more dimensions but not less. I'm pretty sure it is always 3.
* swirl.
I meant to say "swirl" rather than spin, Blackholes swirl around each other, and the insides stay inside and the outsides stay outside as they move. i.e. proof that 'position inside' is connected to the 'position outside' property and disproof of the "no hair conjecture".
Erm, perhaps I can show you, via an incomplete proof, that the inside of the black hole is 3 dimensional space just like the outside.
Measure the speed of light locally here, in all directions and you get 'c' regardless of direction. You are actually measuring it against the scale of matter, so either we are in uniform space, and matter is uniformly scaled in all directions, or the scale of matter and the motion of light are related and change together.
I'm going to assert the latter is true, not the former, that we are not a special 'uniform-space' case, that we ARE in distorted space, very distorted space infact, but I'm not going to offer you a proof of that here. Hence it's an incomplete proof.
OK, so then distortion of space affects the scale of matter, but it also affects the speed of light. So as matter is stretched into spaghetti, light must also move faster in that direction in order to keep 'c' as a constant for that observer in all directions.
And given the position of the event horizon is a function of the speed of light. If speed of light is faster than c, then an event horizon that can capture light travelling at 'c' cannot capture that 'faster' light. The faster you go, the further the event horizon moves away, always staying ahead of you.
It's position is not fixed, it is a function of the speed and distortion of the observer, because speed of light is a function of the stretched space of the observer.
And the space between the event horizon's as seen by our slow moving observer, and its position as seen by its fast moving observer is still space, its still 3 dimensional. To the fast-moving observer it is part of his outer universe (complete with 3 dimensions) and to the slower moving observer it is inside the event horizon. Not unknowable, if he can move faster then he can see inside and it will appear to be in his 3 dimensional universe.
Now you can simply do a chain of observers that form that pattern, all the way into the black hole, each observer can see the one ahead and see they share the same 3D space, but the observer cannot see two-ahead, which appear to be inside the black hole. So the space all the way into the black hole is 3D space.
And you can see why the inside and outside are connected, So in our chain, ABCDEFG.... G can affect F but not EDCBA, F can affect E but not DCBA, and so on. Information definitely leaves the black hole, even for any given observer.
"so then distortion of space affects the scale of matter, but it also affects the speed of light."
Er, no. Your assumption is essentially wrong. Matter is not the same as light. While matter is spaghettified as it falls into the black hole (or at least the event horizon) owing to extreme tidal effects, light does not. Light is only affected once it passes the point that gravity prevents it from escaping the event horizon - all space is bent round in an effective circle so there is nowhere for it to go.
To save anybody from wading through that load of semi-coherent crap I'll point out this gem: but it also affects the speed of light. - sigh, nothing "affects" the speed of light; the speed of light in a given medium is a constant, this is perhaps one of the most tested facts in physics and there is not even a hint of a suggestion of a slight possibility to the contrary.
If you are wrong on one of the most fundamental laws in physics, we can safely assume the rest is equally invalid.
"Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes. Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis. Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion. Shall we go, you and I while we can through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?" - Dark Star, written by Robert Hunter.
A million suns shine down
But I see only one
When I think I'm over you
I find I've just begun
The years move faster than the days
There's no warmth in the light
How I miss those desert skies
Your cool touch in the night
Benson, Arizona, blew warm wind through your hair
My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there
Benson, Arizona, the same stars in the sky
But they seemed so much kinder when we watched them, you and I...
It used to be the complaint was "Black holes are sooo black how will we ever spot one?"
Seems they were so bright the question should have been "How did we ever miss them?"
Just some semi-random thoughts for the weekend.
*Cherenkov radiation is where the speed of a particle in matter exceeds the speed of light in that matter. My question would be "At what density does 'vacuum' become dense enouhg to be considered 'matter' and therefor that the rules for Cherekov emission apply"?
Of course, if you were to speak to the researchers instead of the pundits, they'd readily admit it is just a very good theory and hasn't been tested enough to be treated as "fact" in the complex understanding of the universe as a whole.
Scientists say "We think..." and the media says "found to be..." as if it were a proven fact. *sigh*
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