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Black Hole Art for Nobel Prize Winner

November 5, 2020

Black Hole Art Celebrating Andrea Ghez’s Nobel Prize

blue star edge black hole
A view of the blue star as it travels around the black hole at different time points. When it’s near the edge, the light we see shifts to green, then red. Illustration created for Dr. Ghez @ UCLA, by Nicolle R. Fuller for NSF

I am so humbled (and psyched!)… I can now say that I’ve created black hole art for a Nobel Prize winner! But really, I’m not here to boast, I’m here to congratulate Dr. Ghez for her incredible work and her well-deserved Nobel Prize in Physics. As a woman science communicator, I am thrilled to see Dr. Ghez become 1 of 4 women recognized with the physics Nobel Prize. (Compare that to 216 men!). Congratulations to Dr. Ghez (UCLA) for her 2020 Physics Nobel Prize award, along with colleague Renhard Genzel (UBC). They discovered the black hole, Sagittarius A*, lying at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The award is shared with theoretical physicist Roger Penrose who mathematically connected Einstein’s theory of Relativity to black holes.

Illustration of Black Hole for Physics Nobel Prize Research

sketch black hole
Rough sketch by Nicolle R. Fuller drawn for Dr. Ghez’s black hole art, which was developed into a full 3D illustration and animation.

Through the National Science Foundation, I worked with Dr. Ghez and lab member Tuan Do to illustrate their observations of a lone star’s travel to the edge of the black hole and back again. Over almost 2 decades, her research group tracked the star S2 as it orbits near the very edge of the black hole. The 2018 astronomical paper confirmed their observations from 14 years earlier, now with even better observation capabilities. Their incredible discovery was stunning to the astronomy world, but to the average viewer, the results weren’t as visually compelling. To do their research justice, I worked with them to create a 3D illustration to capture some of the excitement of the discovery. Beyond drawing a star near a black hole, I had another layer of interest to add. Sometimes science hands you guidelines on how to make art appealing. In this case I had an excuse to draw a rainbow of colors! The S2 star comes so close to tumbling into the black hole, that some of its light is bent. The light we see color-shifts, changing from blue, to red, to green. This color shift is what verified that Sagittarius A* is a black hole. I created several different views, plus an animation, to highlight the research.

Animation of Star Circling Our Galaxy’s Black Hole

Get Sucked in… More Black Hole Illustrations

Over the years, I’ve gotten to work on some stellar black hole pieces. In the gallery below I’ve collected a few of the black hole illustrations created for Dr. Ghez, as well as more black hole art from other projects. The science-art gallery below contains:

  • EHT Black Hole photo
    The actual image of a black hole from the Event Horizon Telescope (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.). It’s an AMAZING scientific accomplishment and a very cool image, but in the gallery of science art below, you can see how illustration(s) added value by showing details we can’t otherwise imagine.
    The illustration of the S2 blue star as it travels around the black hole at different time points. (Image free to use, download here!)
  • Another view of S2 as it travels around the black hole. From this angle, we can see the elliptical shape of the orbit. (Image free to use, download here!)
  • This 3D illustration of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way was drawn for Sky & Telescope.
  • Another NSF funded project, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), produced the first true image of the black hole. My visualizations shows the full accretion disc surrounding the black hole center.
  • A drawing showing a top-down view of the black hole, and the swirling plasma surrounding it. (Image free to use, download here!)
  • Have you ever wondered where the strange donut image of the black hole comes from? This science illustration shows how photons are bent around the black hole.

blue star edge black hole NSF-blackhole-Ghez-NRFuller
black hole art blackhole-star-ghez-NRFuller
The black hole saggitarius A at the center of our galaxy, illustrated by Nicolle R. Fuller SayoStudio. blackhole-stars-milkyway-NRFuller
black hole accretion disc jet EHT-blackhole-NSF-NRFuller
black hole accretion disc EHT-NSF-accretiondisk-topdown-NRFuller
photons bent around blakc hole photon-shadow-blackhole-NSF-NRFuller

Black Hole Animation of Event Horizon Telescope Discovery for the National Science Foundation

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Animation,  Art Process,  Science,  Science Illustration 3d illustration,  astronomy art,  black hole,  Nicolle R. Fuller,  nsf,  physics art,  SayoStudio,  science art

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