Suggested Searches

Cosmic Origins Program

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Circling the Black Hole at the Photon Sphere

This animation zooms into a black hole and accretion disk showing how the spinning black hole drags spacetime around with it.

Approaching the Photon Sphere

This artist’s concept shows the different structures that compose an active galactic nucleus. It starts with a full view and then points out the photon ring, corona, jet, accretion disk, and dusty torus before ending on the full view.Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Conceptual Image Lab

Looking Up at the Photon Sphere

This 360-degree video places the viewer between two circling supermassive black holes around 18.6 million miles (30 million kilometers) apart with an orbital period of 46 minutes. The simulation shows how the black holes distort the starry background and capture light, producing black hole silhouettes. A distinctive feature called a photon ring outlines the black holes. The entire system would have around 1 million times the Sun's mass. The background is a view of the entire sky as observed by the NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble; background, NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Circling the Black Hole

This animation takes us past a red giant, through a spiral galaxy and flies over a massive black hole.