ENCHANTED 💫

Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus: First Part (XXV) (tr. J.B. Leishman)

This makes me so happy and sad at the same time.!🥺

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (via razreads)

“In my heart I love her all the time.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald // The Great Gatsby

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

“Mais, vrai, j'ai trop pleuré! Les Aubes sont navrantes (But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking.)”

—

Arthur Rimbaud, 

Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat)

 The endearing youth looks around 

Searching for something, seeking someone

All the gopi of Brij ask their darling

“What is that thee seek so dearly Girdhari?”

“Thy footsteps have become transient? 

Our anklets which chimed along with your

the melodious morning flute feels distant and silent.

What is that thee seek so dearly Govind?”

“We scan amber heaven for thou as

our kohl feels amiss without thy divine embrace,

the universe feels unfathomable and labyrinth 

What is that thee seek so dearly Vasudev?

The saccharine smile of the youth 

gazes the sky reflective of his complexion

with those bejeweled eyes affixed yet adrift

extends his sapphire hands as he says 

‘I yearn, the beauty’s euphoric darshan

she, the very presence of self

adorned in humility of Vrindaban

This Murali seeks for his Manmayi’

I yearn, for the essence of tenderness

She, who dances under nightfall luminous cape

embellished herself in ornaments from the moon,

This Keshav seeks for his Keshavi’

‘I yearn, the nectar of their name,

undiluted bliss, clinging to me like a rare perfume

melts away heavenly sinners’ lie

This Shyam seeks for his Radhe’

- nocturne 

to finding;

hands reaching out towards each other in the depths of the sea, a lone lighthose standing in the midst of the ocean, waves that roar and grow only taller, the sea spray and the salty breeze kissing your face, odd things washing up onto shore, letters written in cursive, effortless script, beholding the words of a lover.

writing prompts! I’m sorry what romance is this edition

no, I didn’t write these. you don’t have to fear for my sanity. 

waking up from a car crash with a different boyfriend than I remember

both me AND my crush got those daddy issues

my hot boss moved in with me…strictly for safety reasons!

blind date with a hot doctor got very weird, very fast

obnoxious guy next door is actually the art hoe of my dreams

my girlfriend who is young but old is an alien

she tries to turn me into a demon so we can be together FOREVER

wrist grabs, kissing and cross-dressing, oh my!

doctor wants to marry the dead girl on his gurney

bad-ass ice queen has a softer side…activated by a boy and cockroaches

flirty training techniques make him fear for his life

when your mom tries to get you laid and then tells your whole school about it

water nymph wants to seduce my cru- I mean the prince I have ZERO interest in

he wore a cardboard cutout with his crush’s face on it…that’s love

what to expect when you’re expecting a demon baby

got out of prison just in time to crash my bf’s wedding

proving that hoe-ing it up is beneficial to finding a relationship…w/SCIENCE

my crush has a secret future wife and she’s jelly

can’t stop flirting with the hottest ghost girls in school

pretend BF willing and able to catfish together but also why are we doing this?

she nearly drowned him, and now he’s in love with her

hospital roommate trying to cuddle in the middle of the night

I hired a hitman for myself, but his feelings were more romantic than murderous

he’s planning to kill her right after this date

she didn’t realize she’d been talking to her crush all along…in another man’s body

For a second or two

Sometimes I fall in love with strangers,

For a second or two or some more.

Not for the thrill or dangers,

For the kindness, simplicity, and whatnots.

That someone on a park bench

Petting a random dog,

And then someone by the swing

Helping a kid back to her feet.

That someone at the next table

Smiling genuinely at the waiter,

And then someone at the handwash

Holding the door for an old woman.

I fall in love with strangers,

A second for how they look,

Two for their generous smile,

And some more for the random act of kindness.

The universe conspires you around such strangers

At that particular point in time out of all.

Because kindness conjures love.

Even if it's from a stranger.

A stranger,

Who will stop what they're doing

To fall in love with you.

For a second or two or some more.