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Black Hole Has Major Flare (nasa.gov)
30 points by nsns on Nov 5, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments


Describing an artists impression of something that's not visible as "a diagram" doesn't sit well with me. I fear many people will see this and assume it's actual photography - my first thought was "how the hell did they manage to get that image" followed swiftly by "oh, it's a mockup; move along".

From the full image link, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia20051 :

"A supermassive black hole is depicted in this artist's concept, surrounded by a swirling disk of material falling onto it. The purplish ball of light above the black hole, a feature called the corona, contains highly energetic particles that generate X-ray light. If you could view the corona with your eyes, it would appear nearly invisible since we can't see its X-ray light. "


di·a·gram ˈdīəˌɡram/

noun 1. a simplified drawing showing the appearance, structure, or workings of something; a schematic representation. "a diagram of the living room"

verb 1. represent (something) in graphic form. "the experiment is diagramed on page fourteen"

Not so bizarre use of the word diagram based on its dictionary definition.


I agree, when I read "diagram" I don't think "photograph." This diagram is more elaborate some others, but I don't think the first impression is to assume it is a real photo when it is explicitly called otherwise.


In this New York Times video you can see a few simulations and representations of black holes: http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000003725182/peering...

Those are some of the best. You should also keep an eye on the Event Horizon Telescope, mentioned in that video: http://eventhorizontelescope.org/index.html




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