I’ve had black holes on the brain lately.* There’s been a flurry of related research announced lately, even the discovery of black hole-like vortexes in the Atlantic Ocean, and astronomers are keenly watching as a gas cloud is ripped apart by the monster black hole at the center of our galaxy. All of which has prompted me to think about the odd simplicity of how black holes work.
A solitary black hole betrays its presence solely through gravity, which bends and warps the light of more distant objects in this illustration. (Credit: NASA/ESA and G. Bacon/STScI)
