On Thursday, October 16, 1997...
At twelve noon...
In the John Deere Lecture Hall...
The Augustana Physics Club presents...
"Black Holes"
The Ultimate Abyss
The most powerful forces in the universe are black holes. They are objects in space formed over
thousands of years that suck up everything around them. Stars and planets are soon devoured, even
light cannot escape the pull of a black hole, hence its name.
In this video, astronomers, astrophysicists and computer animators illustrate the realities of black holes.
This video was broadcast by the Discovery channel on October 5, 1997.
Probing the heart of the active galaxy NGC 6251, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a
never-before-seen view of a warped disk or ring of dust caught in a blazing torrent of ultraviolet light
from a suspected massive black hole (Sep. 10, 1997).
This composite image of the core of the galaxy was
constructed by combining a visible light image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
(WFPC2), with a separate image taken in ultraviolet light with the Faint Object Camera (FOC). While
the visible light image shows a dark dust disk, the ultraviolet image (color-coded blue) shows a bright
feature along one side of the disk. Because Hubble sees ultraviolet light reflected from only one side of
the disk, astronomers conclude the disk must be warped like the brim of a hat. The bright white spot at
the image's center is light from the vicinity of the black hole which is illuminating the disk. Click here for more information.
Related HST Observations
URL: helios.augustana.edu/physics/sps.html