Central region of a supermassive black hole (IMAGE)

Royal Astronomical Society

Central region of a supermassive black hole

Caption

An artist’s impression of matter spiralling inwards, pulled by the strong gravity of a central supermassive black hole, forming an “accretion disk”. Friction heats the infalling material to high temperatures producing intense ultraviolet light. This is reprocessed by hot plasma (extremely high temperature matter) believed to exist very close to the black hole — the “corona” — to produce energetic X-ray light.

Credit

Dimitrios Sakkas (tomakti), Antonis Georgakakis, Angel Ruiz, Maria Chira (NOA)

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

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