Photo credits: © Denver Museum of Nature & Science unless otherwise noted
Approaching the Event Horizon (JPEG: 407KB)
The gravity of a black hole is so intense it warps space and twists light like a giant lens.
Black Hole in Space (JPEG: 358KB)
Black holes are perhaps some of the most elusive and mysterious objects in the cosmos.
Gravity Warps Space (JPEG: 1.6MB)
In Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, the fabric of the cosmos, what he called spacetime, is warped by the presence of massive objects.
Gasses of the Early Universe (JPEG: 1.89MB)
Gravity draws together the gasses of the early universe. Eventually, these clouds grow dense enough and hot enough to ignite and become the first stars.
© Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Swift Observatory (JPEG: 1.67MB)
NASA’s Swift observatory is designed to detect gamma rays, bursts of high-energy radiation thought to signal the formation of black holes.
Colliding Galaxies (JPEG: 1.7MB)
When galaxies collide over billions of years’ time, the supermassive black holes at their centers merge into a single black hole of staggering size.
© Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Accelerating Stars (JPEG: 3.3MB)
Astronomer Andrea Ghez has tracked the acceleration patterns and projected the orbits of stars around a mysterious, invisible object at the galactic center.
© Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Inside a Black Hole I (JPEG: 2.2MB)
The inside of a black hole is not black at all—it contains all the energy and matter the black hole ever pulled across its event horizon.
Inside a Black Hole II (JPEG: 330KB)
The trip into a black hole featured in Black Holes is a visualization of mathematical equations written by Albert Einstein to describe gravity. It's the first attempt to use real science to show the inside of a black hole.
