Black Hole Week 2021

If you’re looking to find some black holes, it’s always helpful to know exactly what you’re looking for! To get started on your black hole hunt, first watch this handy video to learn the basics about these strange cosmic objects.

This handy dandy field guide covers basic black hole anatomy, how to find black holes, as well as different black hole types. Never go to space without it! Download the booklet using the links below.

Astronomers want to study lots of black holes, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of basic black holes, you might want to search for some fancier ones. That’s great! But, before you do, refer to this convenient chapter to learn just how fancy some black holes can be.

One of the planned surveys from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will use a quirk of gravity to reveal thousands of new planets beyond our solar system.

Have you heard about black holes – objects in space with so much mass packed into such a small region that not even light can escape them? Now you can listen to the "sounds" of a black hole!

Watching black holes by themselves is fun, but what about ones that like being more social? Some black holes really LOVE to dance with other objects in the universe. Learn more about them by watching this helpful video!

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in the galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). That remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told. Data from 19 observatories are being released that promise to give unparalleled insight into this black hole and the system it powers.

This image from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 2012 shows an extraordinary outburst from a black hole – where its X-ray output increased at least 3,000 times – in the galaxy M83.

Lurking in our galaxy, approximately 6,000 light-years from Earth, is a monster named Cygnus X-1 that is snacking on its neighboring star. Don’t get too close, or you’ll become its next meal!

It’s not just smaller black holes that have all the fun – really, really massive black holes also enjoy being the center of attention! Watch this chapter to learn more about these giant black holes and all their companions!

A pair of orbiting black holes millions of times the Sun’s mass perform a hypnotic pas de deux in a new NASA visualization. The movie traces how the black holes distort and redirect light emanating from the maelstrom of hot gas – called an accretion disk – that surrounds each one.

Even though you’ve learned about basic black holes, and fancy black holes, and social black holes, and giant black holes, there are always stranger things out there! In this final chapter, you can learn about some of the rarest black holes – biggest, smallest, farthest, strangest, and more!

While even the most “normal” black hole seems exotic compared to the tranquil objects in our solar system, there are some record-breaking oddballs.

We’ve brought together a panel of black hole experts from around the world to answer your questions about these fascinating and often misunderstood objects.