Absolutely jaw dropping how inconceivably huge these supermassive black holes are. I always love it when Veritasium delves into the topic of space.

srsly tho, seeing you in every comment section in every video is like becoming normal for me. it scares me

You have become a part of my youtube.

The world needs teachers like him! Watched many videos about Sgr A* imaging and none of them explained it as clearly and simple as he did! I am marking this video as my black hole reference.

@Mark People now aren't gonna let him catch a break on that one, are they?

you know these guys smoke alot of herb to do what they do...

black holes are like a bug who didn't get fixed before the universe started, who forgot to turn off gravity if there's too much matter in one place

Completely agree. He’s an excellent teacher.

100% agree with you 👍

The way you describe the 'Earth sized" telescope at 10 minutes was so perfect.

Ew

@ahmed4363 Wow...

@Niccolò Paganini yes they are and are copying comments directly from other people.

@ahmed4363 lonely sandwich isn't a bot, is it? Like Just a Guy without a moustache

*universe is so crazy to grasp, at one time you get the feeling of existential crisis on the another instance you want to fly in the space and see what all is happening in the space, sometimes you feel if you had the superpower to go back in time that would have been great...*

Why is this so on point? Nooooooo😭😭💔

This was so rewarding to watch and fascinating to learn how far we’ve come in proving black holes exist. In my college astronomy texts from just two decades ago it was all still considered just theoretical. Thanks Veritasium!

@scowie ROFL

@Alexandre Betioli That's got nothing to do with gravitational lensing (and I have never heard anyone claim it is anyway!).

@scowie So we shouldn't see the light ring on a full moon eclipse.

We haven't proven that black holes (as described by General Relativity) exist. The fact that these stars orbiting Sagittarius A* display no gravitational lensing effects whatsoever goes to show that the GR explanation of gravity is false — gravity is not the bending of spacetime at all. The path of light is unaffected by gravity. Gravitational lensing is a myth. All the observations that are claimed to be examples of gravitational lensing are really just good old refractional lensing in the density gradient of a gas cloud or an atmosphere.

Black Hole Deniers do still exist. Professor Dave Explains has videos on it. I warmly recommend it if yuo want to laugh at some Science-Denial.

This is hands down the best explanation of a black hole I've ever heard.

@streuthmonkey1 And exactly what did you research which thousands of scientists and astrophysicists around the world didn't to tell that black holes don't exist? What is your field of study?

@streuthmonkey1 LOL the only one unscientific here is you. What degree do you have to make such nonsensical assumptions? And btw I'm not religious.

@scowie An excelent summation of the methods used to create this fictional image and the failings by Veratasium when it comes to this field when he does so well in exposing the flaws of many others.

@Darahaas Vadlamudi Proven fact?! lol How very unscientific of you. Hardly surprising for someone with a pseudo-religious mindset!

The better question is: does it blend? ok jokes aside, i think of questions like if the star void/black hole has momentum(moving, not rotating), is it more energy dense than matter around(in its orbit), is it more correlated against the motion of other black holes as to the expansion of the universe or destined to collide with another star void?... are much more valued questions to put on Youtube for now, not in a Ve video yet lol ;)

Hello Derek, I applaud as excitedly as I can what you do; thrilled my pre-teen children look forward to each of your videos and deeply satisfied and comforted when they walk away fascinated and excited how they learned a fundamental and complex concept that might have otherwise been too difficult to grasp. I feel less disappointed as a father bent on staying in "scientist" mode that you and the videos you deliver exist! You have my eternal gratitude and my undying support!

that’s really cool dude

wow our level of science and tech is truly mind boggling. when you said we would need a planet sized telescope my heart sank, but to learn that we already thought of the solution to this problem and have implemented it, amazing! THis is the best video I've seen to deconstruct and explain the black hole image and the real significance it is, what a breakthrough!

As always, truly quality work! Thank you for all the hard work you put into these videos! Feels like a professional documentary every time

More space please. This was absolutely amazing. Thanks.

I think there's enough space out there as it is, to be frank.

@Capricorn Sure is!

Amazing but crazy

@Nen Master5 dude i only said „when hecker“ nothing else. 🤓

@Panzer of The Lake Black Hole Deniers do still exist. Professor Dave Explains has videos on it. I warmly recommend it if yuo want to laugh at some Science-Denial.

Thank you so much for the visualisations. Even though I am interested in astrophysics for decades, I found few explanations which show in a simple yet accurate way how astrophysics actually work.

Thanks Derek! But it still remains unclear to me: if the accretion disk can be directed towards us, then why can't we see its leading edge crossing the central region of the image? After all, some of the rays from it are not directed in orbit around the black hole, but directly towards us, and, in theory, should not change their trajectory (well, or almost).

@trbz_, It does not have to be thin, only if disc crosses black hole exactly in the middle, which is very unlikely. Unless, of course, there is some correlation between the planes of rotation of the accretion disk and the entire Milky Way, as a result of which we automatically look at the disk exactly from the side.

For the M87 black hole, it ended up being that we are looking towards it from a pole, rather than from the side. For Sagittarius A*, the resolution is too low to be able to make out the thin bisecting line of the disk.

Thank you for explaining how the image was obtained. I love learning about the science and techniques used to arrive at a discovery, or in this case, in getting an image of something so incredibly far away.

Would love to see simulation of Black Hole created with the help of Meta Materials. If possible to bend or refract light to such an extent, that we can actually see the light around it as the way we'd see around Black Holes.

The craziest thing to me is that these images just confirm our theories. We had visuals of black holes purely based on the Maths. A random guy on the street could have a decent image of a black hole because a movie did the effort to represent it correctly (minus the lighter and darker parts). And only a few years later, we manage to take a picture which just happens to be exactly what we expected.

What if black holes are the reason that space is a vaccuum

Our theories? Our maths? 🥹

@Bob Guy Red or Blue shifts?

@八神こう couldnt have put it better

I mean, what were the alternative possibilities? Square, triangle, heart-shaped? Not much to choose from really. It wasn't as if we were trying to predict what the dinosaurs looked like without their fossilised remains.

Your dedication and interest to make us understand the concepts are extremely adorable. This is the best explanation I have ever seen on the internet.

This is mind bending. Your explanation is so easy to grasp given the complexity of the subject matter. Now I have some level of understanding when I look at the image. Thanks! 😁

Goosebumps! The power of mathematics and science. Forever in love with knowledge! Great work Derek, thank you.

Idk, there’s something hunting and beautiful about the finality of the theoretical existence of an object as mind bending as a black hole; let alone a supermassive black hole in our own backyard. It’s as awesome as it is frightening. We’re truly but a pale blue dot/a mote of dust

very true, brother

In 2019 we had our first ever look at a black hole, pretty much confirming Einstein's theory of relativity, made over 100 years ago. And 3 years later, we finally captured the image of our galaxy's centre, which was for the longest time thought to be near impossible due to the many space debris and dust clouds covering it. It's truly fascinating to see how far our technology has improved in just a span of a few years.

Actually, it is NOT einstein's theory of general relativity. It was plagiarized from Hendrik Lorentz and credited to that overly-glorified patent clerk.

the 2019 image was only 2 pixels; it literally confirmed nothing, as advanced mathematics they used can literally produce any image you want. The just threw out all the image processing that didn't look like a 'black hole.'

@notforsale today He has done this on trending videos for years he isn't stopping anytime soon. It is better to ignore him.

Man, thank you for making these videos. I’ve been obsessed with astronomy and Astro physics my entire life but you somehow have a way of explaining things that helps me to understand better than ever. I’ve thought about that image of a black hole from interstellar for years now trying to figure out why it looked the way it did. I knew it had a lot to do with the mass and warping of space time but this video is so informative. Thanks again for the great content.

This is the most understandable explanation I have seen of the operation of a radio interferometer. The graphics are very clear and awesome. Thank you so much!

Question is: If we already have used the Earth's diameter-sized telescopes, we cannot expect sharper images of black holes until we have observing satellite dishes with distances to each others larger than the diameter of the Earth, right? :(

Derek is one of the few Youtubers (= Science Educators) making YouTube making sense at all. It is incredibly hard to explain complicated topics in a way that any reasonably educated people can understand. Great work!

I'm not even gonna pretend otherwise, the arts and crafts really helped me get a true grasp of what you were describing. Perfectly demonstrated

Qawareta sail Lu kune kuse

Same!!

Same. Definitely helped me to understand the physics.

Yeah me too

As always, truly quality work! Thank you for all the hard work you put into these videos! Feels like a professional documentary every time

Wow, great graphics. Zooming into the center of the Milky Way is an experience.

The fact that I could understand everything you said, speaks volumes about your ability to teach. Thank you for making me feel smarter than I actually am!

I‘ve pretty much replaced Netflix with Veritasium. I mean, there are other great and very interesting channels in YouTube as well, but this one just takes the prize! Thanks Derek!

Somehow “supermassive” still sounds like an understatement. I vote for “SuperDuperMassive”

WHen one has a black hole equivalent in size of the area encompassing the radius of the Sun out all the way out to Jupiter's orbit....; that's relatively....BIG!

Haha!! Love it

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion))

That we have managed to aggregate instruments across the earth’s surface to achieve once impossible resolution is a real triumph for science, made possible by the use of GPS timing and location cues embedded in computer algorithms processing results gathered around the globe. Despite my understanding it, it’s a stunning accomplishment. Still, the image of stars racing around a black hole is the most jaw-dropping thing I have ever personally seen. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time watching that loop, considering the implausibility of ‘being there’.

I tried to explain to someone why the picture of Saggitarius A* was so impressive, by describing it as taking a picture of a rabbit in the middle of a jungle, using an out-of-focus camera while standing a hundred miles away. But I think your analogy of a donut on the moon gets the point across better.

Hi, amazing explanation of how these images are captured and ofcouse love the way you have explained why the black holes look like the way it looks... I have some questions, not sure if this is right place to ask those. Questions: 1. Is accretion disk always flat in one plane? Like ring of Saturn? If so what’s the reason? 2. Is black hole responsible for motion of all the stars around the centre of galaxy? And in case if spiral galaxy, is this motion due to black hole is responsible for the spiral shape?

I read a book about black holes back in high school in the 80's, and it sparked an interest in me ever since. We've come a long way since then, and I've never stopped being amazed by them.

I've gotta say that your "what does a black hole look like?" explanation is by far the best. I re-watch that video with some frequency while trying to explain black holes. They're basically a spherical "fun-house" where light does all kinds of wacky things. Even the paper written by the visual effects developers for Interstellar leaves a lot on the table in explaining what these things would look like and you do such a great job.

@Merlin oh dear I must have missed the memo that said any unsubstantiated garbage can be claimed as Scientific "fact" ..... of course under the old burden of "proof" people like yourself required to actually know what they are talking about is such a troublesome restriction isn't it? .. (Shakes head/rolls eyes)

@Allan Roser So have you learned that science isn't just limited to just doing physical repeated experiments? Or are you just gonna ignore my comment and not acknowledge and learn on your misunderstanding on what science really is?

@Joe A. oh dear... another starry eyed disciple... can you please give a quick evaluation on the "image" for us? Pixel size and resolution ... let's start with something basic ... c'mon Mr Science.. let that big brain loose.

@Allan RoserLots of “theories” were just theories until proven true. Black holes were once a theory too. Then we discovered them. Now we even have images of two black holes. It’s looking worse and worse for you buddy. But keep having a misunderstanding of what science is, you wouldn’t be smart enough to work in any scientific field so it doesn’t matter whether you understand what science is and what it isn’t anyways.

His visual was actually really helpful in explaining the bending of the light, very nice video!! Im super interested in black holes and all kinds of space stuff so this was really nice to see such a good explanation!!

Sweetly explained! Really insightful and something that I inadvertently committed to memory, without even trying too hard. P. S.- I would suggest a follow up video explaining wave optics a little more.

The more amazing things is that this event may have taken many many centuries ago because our space is so huge that even light takes good amount of time to travel

The best part of this video is that Derek looks extremely happy and excited when he explains the image with his cardboard model... This is why I love people like Derek Muller, Physics Girl, Michael Stevens - they are just soooo happy and enthusiastic to teach us such complicated topics in a simple yet profound manner. To me, people like these are not in anyway inferior to those who look up at the sky and solve the mysteries of the Universe.

The three people you mentioned are very talented science communicators. We need them to digest the information for those of us (me!) who are not experts in the fields that they delve into. They make the information so accessible! I agree: they are not inferior at all.

For anyone who complains about black hole images being blurry: 0:28 On a more serious note, seeing the image come together at 10:30 literally dropped my jaw. It's so incredible watching seemingly unrelated patterns coalesce into such an incredible image.

@Sisaska You can definitely believe in God as a scientist. All that a scientist can interfere with is the creation, if you want to call it that way. We can't use science to proof or disprove God. But I have a problem when religion contradicts science. That's like saying God is misleading us by putting us in a universe with all these rules, where we can predict outcomes correct and create a consistent image of the universe without contradictions, but the bible says something else which contradicts those rules. How about saying that nothing existed yesterday and this morning God created the entire universe with you and me and planted memories of our past life straight into our brains. God could certainly do it, and it is not less logical that saying the dinosaurs where flushed away by water and somehow became stone just 4400 years ago.

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion)

@Brian Hale To see a star ignite you would need to know where to look, and when to look. The number of stars in existence is not the number of stars igniting, the sky is incredibly large. And it is not as fast a process as you might think, as it is not like the explosion of an H-bomb (or it would rip the star to shreds). You could look at the Wikipedia page to get a better grasp of how a star is "born", and how hard it is to actually "see" it, than come back and refine your argument.

@Brian Hale Smooth preaching segue man

I find this beautifull From the interferance pattern mapping composing a picture (looks like a Fourier transformation, but applied to an image) Up to the description of the image, and how the warping in space affects what you see simply gorgeus

One day , I aspire to understand everything that you said in details. You have created a new hunger in me for science. I hope to meet you someday and understand everything about the black holes. You rock !!!!

I can imagine that if someone were to be a few lightyears away from a black hole, they should find common instances of atoms and bigger chunks speeding through space at nearly the speed of light. I'm glad that our universe has ambient space dust scattered around everywhere.

This was just awesome. But I actually had a doubt, where does Hawking radiation fit into the explanation that you gave? Don’t we see that? To be honest I only have a little knowledge of waves and interference. Since I just completed school and so don’t really know much about the Hawking radiation and am genuinely curious

10:31 the way the black hole's picture appears from just black and white lines, is truly amazing.. hats off to the people who took this amazing image of our closest supermassive black hole

@West_47-122 no, everybody should learn

@Kyle Foster "One day computers will be as good as they were back in 1969 and they will be capable of doing such things." wat?

@James Baloun So, only scientists and brainiacs should get to use advanced technology?

Yeah man if you pay a good computer graphics guy to make anything out of basically nothing. I took a picture of my racing streaks from my underwear, they were just some brown lines on white underwear. I sent it to this guy on fiver and he was able to render it and it turns out was an exact copy of an irregular galaxy they really do some amazing work. I find it really interesting how I took photos of my house over a course of several years. In some pictures my windows are the size of my door and then they look as they should in other pictures. I discovered this phenomenon when looking at pictures of the earth though the years and noticed the continents are all different sizes in each picture. Space is some really crazy stuff, one day I hope we can re-build the telemetry data on how to leave low earth orbit and go to the moon. One day computers will be as good as they were back in 1969 and they will be capable of doing such things.

@streuthmonkey1 There was no image taken by the telescopes, they took light phase and timestamp data. That data was used to construct an image after the fact. The number of pixels in that final image can be however many or as few as you want, and it doesn't change the quality of the input data. What exactly are you referring to?

Took me a minute to distinguish when he’s referring to the event horizon or the Event Horizon™️. It would make more sense if you added a brief sentence explaining what a black hole’s event horizon is in this video as well, I thought he was referring to the telescope in the intervening clip! Excellent job overall!

What? Event horizon is a telescope? I thought it was a film that you don't need eyes to see!

@Robert Pruitt I am VERY certian "Two strudels Please" that you replied to knows that an event horizon is! They were not asking for it to be explained in the video, just clarification that they were talking about the part of the black hole not the telescope, that goes by the same name!

Absolutely not necessary. There are thousands of videos on YouTube explaining exactly what a black hole is in excruciating detail. we do not have time as a species for every single science video on every single subject to start at the very beginning because some people won't go and look up what they don't know, and want to have everything spoon-fed to them. You clicked on a video specifically talking about a picture, and the title made that clear. if you want to know how a black hole is formed, or what all of the parts are called, go click on a video about that. Don't expect everybody in the world to spoon feed you every ounce of information you have in your head.

That was so cool, thanks a lot, I've always wondered why blackholes were depicted like that! You made it make so much more sense to me now! Even so, it is still fracking mind-blowing to me! (need to save this one to watch again and again)

I love the quality in the structure of how and when you choose to present each concept

That is by far the best explanation of why the image looks like that you can find on YouTube, Derek is a very good teacher.

The explanation and practical demonstration of the way the "image of a black hole" is formed, starting at 10:41, is really marvelous! Great job, Veritasium! I really love that very hands-on prop he used.

@Dick Urkel yeah, more like 80% of the previous video

It's just clips from the previous video on the topic though, right?

@Birbdad I'm an adult and couldn't grasp it until this brilliant physical demonstration

Yeah, it's pretty genius to make an actual model in such a way. Great way to teach it to kids.

This is both fascinating and absolutely terrifying. Thank you.

The grade of precision and Detail you provide is superb! Thanks for explaining how the Radio telescopes working together. I was looking for a explanation for that since we got the first picture of a blackhole

Sir, I have a doubt. In super massive stars, do the helium atoms(resulted from hydrogen fusion) start fusion to form carbon only after all the hydrogen atoms are fused and used up (to form helium)?

Science and astrophisics is just MINDBLOWING! It is the science that is absolutely jawdropping! Your channel is so inspirational. I wish I was reborn as a scientist in my next life... ;)

I've gotta hand it to you-- this was one of the most easily understandable explanations of why we see what we see in these pictures I've ever experienced. Absolutely outstanding work of science communication that makes incredibly complex material understandable without dumbing anything down.

@Hubburasool Your Quran surah 56 verse 76 - and this, if only you knew, is indeed a great oath— Your Quran surah 56 verse 77 - that this is truly a noble Quran, Your Quran surah 56 verse 78 - in a well-preserved Record, Literally none of those mention about stars whatsoever, it's pathetic how people like you make up things.

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion)

The sequence generating black hole image from those stripes was a real mind = blown moment.

Thank you sir, this the most compact but true presentation on the majority of all aspects how we look at black holes. I learned a lot in little time.

Really great discussion/demonstration. Best I've found so far. I came here after a dissappointing discussion at the Perimeter Institute channel, so you beat the PI on this one. High marks. Well done.

Hello and thank you for the very good explanation of the image tech and science. Just at the end i got lost a bit and would like to ask why, instead of seeing just one brighter spot (as one can see in your simulated image due to the Doppler effect) can we see 3 brighter spots in the real image? Is it because we do see 3 diffent planes of the horizon? Any further explantion would be very much appreciated. Thank you and all the best for your next projects!

15:37 This animation explained all. I loved how he explained the image of black hole and we seeing a whole sphere around black hole in the circular image we see was mind blowing learning 😊 Keep up the good work Veritasium❤💕

As technically impressive as these renderings are, the clip showing those stars zooming around apparently nothing is what blows my mind. I feel like I could watch that for hours and still be fascinated...

@Brian Hale you're really hung up on this one. I really don't know what else to say to you. Write a peer reviewed journal on this, I guess. You'd win the nobel prize for your discoveries, for sure. You'd get more going that route than what you can get from writing comments on youtube. Go get yourself that prize, my guy.

@Konw The Trut!!!!! no one should call themselves a scientist and say that plasma fusion is a slow process which is unobservable.

@Brian Hale well, we haven't observed every star ever so there's still a lot we haven't seen. I also think you need to brush up on in terms of astronomy. Lemme guess, your astronomy lessons came from the Bible?

Absolutely jaw dropping how inconceivably huge these supermassive black holes are. I always love it when Veritasium delves into the topic of space.

This is a really interesting and informative video about black holes. It's very impressive how astronomers have been able to create this image of the Milky Way's black hole.

Absolutely jaw dropping how inconceivably huge these supermassive black holes are. I always love it when Veritasium delves into the topic of space.

I could listen to you explaining the image of a black hole everytime :') loved the explanation of how the network of telescopes are able to combine their images and produce the images of the black holes too thank you

The continuous zoom-in from a relatively wide view of the night sky all the way to the stars surrounding the black hole really puts things into perspective.

Gotta love the title tho

One of the greatest science explainer videos I've ever seen. Phenomenal job!

I‘ve pretty much replaced Netflix with Veritasium. I mean, there are other great and very interesting channels in YouTube as well, but this one just takes the prize! Thanks Dere

Super interesting video thank you a lot! Interference is really our best buddy for the detection of the smallest deviations of... well anything. Can you elaborate how mass ever falls into a black hole? From the view of an outside observer time at the event horizon should be stretched to infinity. So how would a black hole ever grow?

The infinite images of shadows remind me of harmonic series I love the new data we've been getting just off of these two images we have. I've already seen you and another education communicator YouTuber giving some slightly newer insights and details of black hole imagery and physics

Seeing those interference patterns combine into the image of the black hole might've been one of the most surreal things I have ever experienced in my life. Thank you for this video

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion))

Yep, was a mind = blown moment for sure.

it blew my mind... somwhow after following physics and cosmology videos for few years now. it still blew my mind that how humans imagined that putting that together will actuall return an image....

@Aron Sarmasi I love how it the same maths and principles here that is behind stuff like X-ray crystallography, a technique we use to look at very tiny things in great detail.

@Igor Noga Underrated comment; more generally, fourier transforms are super cool!

Bravo! This explanation is the most excellent of a Blackhole that I ever watched. Much better than my college teacher. Shush, don't tell I ever said this.

great explanation! I love how it makes it easy for regular people like myself to understand these things ;D Question: If the light and debris at 2.6 - 3.0 rs is a sphere going around the black hole, then why is the light represented as a flat donat pancake? If it's a sphere, then shouldn't we see a bright round glowing ball? We wouldn't see anything black at all because there's SPHERE of light surrounding the black hole... Sorry, I might be missing something... just a thought... thanks

we see "black" because within that radius, light cannot escape. no light = darkness. So we are only seeing the light that manages to escape the event horizon. does that make sense?

Holy Moly. This Is so well explained, even my stupid brain who cant even do maths, could understand this. There were so many things i didnt know about black holes when i thought i knew most..... INCREDIBLE JOB. this is what i call a good educational video. My Respect.

Wow, the combination of all the different wavelength distortion blew my mind. Such an elegant solution!

As a radio astronomer myself, I've got to say that your explanation of interferometry was amazing. Might point some of my students towards it!

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion)

Try pointing two students at the same time from different locations, to see what matches up in their homework. If you do this enough you can probably get a sense of what the video is actually teaching well.

Ma'am, it was so nice to hear from you. I would also love to be like you one day, I love spacetime stuff.

I think it's the first explanation I've understood.

I enjoyed watching this, but it feels like Derek missed a very important part of what we wanted to get out of this video: what do the different parts of the new black hole image mean? And what can we learn from this specific black hole? Although his previous video on black holes was great, it doesn't make sense to have have a new video that has a large part of an old video in it. All in all, this video felt a bit rushed, which is not what I expected from Veritasium.

I love watching these videos and the theory is exciting and logical assuming a black hole really exists. It just makes good sense to us.

I am amazed how much astronomy has to offer in careers, I enjoy learning about Sagitarious A*, thank you!

Mind.. Blown! I've tried to learn a lot about black holes for a while now but this video explains so much so well it's fantastic. Thank you so much for making these videos!

It's important to mention that the "movie" of the stars orbiting our central black hole is time-lapse footage spanning nearly 20 years. I showed this to someone unfamiliar with astronomy and physics and the first thing they said is "the stars move that fast?!" - thinking that it was somehow real time footage.

Wow, are people outside mainstream cosmology really that stupid? Almost as stupid as thinking the image shows an accretion disc with a black hole at the center, as if the image is taken in plan from directly above or below viewing along the spin axis of the galaxy, a neat trick for Earth or any galactic body-based telescopes. Or does it not occur to anyone else that if we were to observe the accretion disc of our own galaxy's black hole from here on Earth, we'd actually see it edge on?

ok

@blown215 while the speed of our solar system seems really high because it's a high number. compared to the distances involved we move very very slowly.

Our solar system is moving with an average velocity of 450,000 miles per hour (away from the center). How can we make footage of this hole for nearly 20 years! That's a lot of miles apart!

@Drinkyoghurt Relativistic time dilation on any of those stars in the time lapse would not be that significant - they are too far away for that. The closest approach for any of them has been about 13 billion km or about twice the distance from earth to Pluto - they would need to be about 50 - 100 times closer for the dilation to be very significant. The other thing to consider is that (much like in the movie Interstellar) for anyone close enough to experience significant time dilation, they would not feel anything different - their own time passage would appear perfectly normal to THEM. However, if they were to observe people further away from the black hole - they would see those people, ( their clocks, their time) moving more quickly. But, flipping it around, from the perspective of the people further away from the black hole looking at their own time, all local time seems perfectly normal to them, i.e. all of their own clocks and time passage would be normal. However, those same people looking back at the person near the black hole WOULD see that person's time moving more slowly.

So perfectly explained, learnt a lot :)

You did it again, Derek! I always wondered why there seemed to be more than one accretion disc. Absolutely fascinating.👍👍👍

The way you describe the 'Earth sized" telescope at 10 minutes was so perfect.

Hello Veritiasium, i tried to search for any of your videos explaining how does activated charcoal absorbs/removes odor. I tried researching and most of them claim that they can remove odor, but i am interested to understand the mechanism of action. thanks

I loved the revisit to your old explanation from the M87* image. Still the clearest and most intuitive explanation I've seen, and the one I always mimic when trying to explain it to friends and family members. I've been watching your videos for over 10 years, since I was about 13 years old. I'm 24 now, working on my PhD in Astrophysics. Even with the knowledge and experience I've gained from my education, I still find that your explanations are usually robust, intuitive and very visually appealing. You're an inspiration Derek. I will be sure to thank you in the acknowledgements of my thesis when the time comes, because I don't think I'd be where I am without your videos, and the videos from other science communicators.

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion)

@Sha Smi Thank you. I just want to say that if you're under 50, I don't think it's too late to make some sort of career in science if you really want to. There were quite a few students in their 30s and 40s on my undergrad physics course. I was also on that path of drugs, alcohol and partying, at a very young age. Discovering a love of science was one of the things that really pulled me away from that. It made me feel like I was an outsider compared to the crowd I was in with, so one day I just cut them off. I was a bit of a recluse for a few years after, but it was good for me in the long-run. I've been going to gigs regularly since I was 16 though, I don't think that's hindered my focus at all over the years.

It's always great to see a story of science communicators inspiring scientists.

That's really great

Hi, fellow stupid, unintelligent human and neighbor of yours here… just wanted to thank you for going into that field and helping advance science and our understanding of the cosmos. If I could go back and redo my life I would have chosen the same career path. I chose to mess around in school, do drugs, go to concerts, ect. Although I don’t regret my choices and I had a BLAST none of it helped humanity or the advancement of our species. It’s bigger folks like you that do that so I thank you, and Derek. ❤️

Every time I see explanations about space I'm incredibly humbled of my own existence.

this is by far the best video I've ever seen went in comes to explaining how a black hole looks and behaves. Heck it might even be the first to ever describe it so well and easily understanding.

Really very interesting , i always look at new Veritassium videos , sure to learn something out of ordinary , nobody can explain complicated things so clearly. Thank You. Question could we have in the future a radio-telescope on Mars doing spectacular interferometry ?

It’s so terrifying and incredible how tiny we really are.

This was such a well-explained video that even someone with limited knowledge of the subject (like me) could learn it easily. Very impressive and thank you for your effort!

Bruhh

simply amazing explaination and visualization of the phyical nature of a black hole.

The essential and professional man endeavors to set sail across the waters to the enchanted land of Europe. He has in historic past, leisured in the exotic terrain, yet now, he has chartered a ferry for the long term, the quixotic adventurer sails to the topography of that of Europe to never return. Only replete with his knowledge procured over many a years, and bequeathed with the enlightenment one has when cobblestone displays it's beauty to that of a city with history equal to his own. We are creative people and shall our intrinsic value give extrinsic measurements of pecuniary worth. Shall the winds of history flow always in our favour.

Came here to write the same thing

Great explanation and awesome visualizations! But still 🤯 I'm in awe by all the clever people figuring these things out. These images also remind me of the images on a speeding ticket. Quite expensive for an image with such a bad resolution ;-)

What is the difference between quantum tunneling and wormhole? The particle borrows enough energy from quantum fluctuations to perform quantum tunneling within the time limit of the uncertainty principle, and returns the energy within the time limit. Energy bends space-time, and wormholes are channels formed by space-time bending. Do particles complete quantum tunneling by opening wormholes with energy borrowed from quantum fluctuations? Can quantum tunneling allow particles to tunnel from one planet to another?

As a fellow teacher, I appreciate your style, communication, and enthusiasm. As a student, I appreciate the content, and ease of understanding it. You have found your calling!

Thanks for the excellent video to explain the observation of the blackhole. So far, the scientists have taken images of two blackholes with shining rings surrounded. Does it means the imaginary pictures of a dark circle represented for a blackhole need to be replaced by the ring-like images?

being a computer scientist, I still have hard time imagining how they synchronized those satellites.. so many parameters distance, gravity, elevation, movements, earth rotation, earthquakes, nanometer movements and so on.... and all this, with the accuracy of atomic clock :O

@Hubburasool You're not much of an evangelist, Bro. I know a little bit about Islam and I have no idea what you're talking about. How are you doing on that great scale?

Quran 56 - 75, 76 This is the verse which says that the place where the stars fall and. , 77-8 The part that says when the stars are extinguished) This part needs to be defined interprited(For those who mock Quran 109 -6 to you is your religion,and to me,,my religion))

@Brian Hale i couldn't agree nore with you,,, All the best to you and yours from me and mine bruva 💪 🇦🇺

What a spectacular explanation! Thank you for this!

I wonder why we always need to explain the singularity as a infinitely small point, I guess this comes from the math that breaks up but it would make much more sense that the actual core is not a single point but a very dense mass. The size of the black hole event horizon grows as the non-infinite mass grows larger. If the all the mass would be an infinite point who then we could see different sizes in black holes to start with...

More space videos please! Especially with James Webb almost ready.

This is the clearest explanation video about black hole i have ever seen. Now the rest of the black hole videos can make more sense. I would like to see more detailed video about each part/layer of black hole talked about in this video.