Artist’s Illustration of Black Hole in NGC 3147

This is an artist's illustration of the supermassive black hole residing at the core of spiral galaxy NGC 3147.

Hubble observations of the black hole in galaxy NGC 3147 demonstrate two of Einstein's theories of relativity. In the artist's illustration of the galaxy, the reddish-yellow features swirling around the center are the glow of light from gas trapped by the hefty black hole's powerful gravity. The black hole is embedded deep within its gravitational field, shown by the green grid that illustrates warped space. The gravitational field is so strong that light is struggling to climb out, a principal described in Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Material also is whipping so fast around the black hole that it brightens as it approaches Earth on one side of the disk and gets fainter as it moves away. This effect, called relativistic beaming, was predicted by Einstein's theory of special relativity. NGC 3147 is located 130 million light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Draco the Dragon.