This image is from a computer animation illustrating a spinning black hole. The close-up view here represents the immediate vicinity of the black hole, with the event horizon depicted as a black sphere. The surrounding disk of gas, represented by white and blue rings, whirls around the black hole at different speeds, with the material closest to the black hole approaching the speed of light.

Scientists Observe Light Fighting to Escape Black Hole's Pull

Scientists have found new evidence that light emanating from near a black hole loses energy climbing out of a gravitational well created by the black hole, a key prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Black holes are celestial objects with gravity so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape from them once past their boundary, called the event horizon. This makes a black hole invisible, but black holes reveal their presence by their strong pull on matter that is close to -- but not beyond -- their event horizons.

Astronomers want to observe the regions near black holes because they believe that a black hole's powerful gravity will warp the space and time next to it in accord with the bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory.

This observation of warped space, made with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the XMM-Newton satellite, also offers a novel glimpse inside that chaotic swirl of gas surrounding a black hole, called an accretion disk: The scientists captured bright hotspots in small, localized regions within the disk, a crucial step needed to map such a region.

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