Sorry, but this is NOT a photo of a 'Black Hole'. It's just an artist's' rendering of one, since there has never been the technological capability to actually capture this phenomena on film . This is due to the fact that 'Black Holes' are either too far away or they're too small, and since they absorb all light, it's an extremely difficult subject to photograph.
What exactly is a 'Black Hole' anyway? They're cold remnants of former stars, so dense that no matter, not even light, can escape their powerful gravitational pull. Most stars eventually end up as "White Dwarfs" or "Neutron Stars", so "Black Holes' are the final evolutionary stage in teh lifetime of an enormous star, typically estimated to be 10 to 15 times the size of our own sun.
And, the truth is that they're only a theory, based on observations around the disturbance of stars and their orbital patterns, as well as images of infrared and radio waves that show debris fields created by objects being sucked in to the 'Black Hole'.
Now, there's a new project called "Event Horizon Telescope" that will use a series of probes to scan what is referred to as Sgr A, the largest and closest Black Hole to Earth that makes it a good subject. In their words "Sgr A* is thought to mark the position of a ~4 million solar mass black hole, and because of its proximity and estimated mass presents the largest apparent event horizon size of any black hole candidate in the Universe."
All pretty cool stuff and way out of my realm of thinking, but it will be interesting to see what they come up with when they put this all together. Then, maybe by then I'll have figured out what a "White Hole" is and can wrap my head around that concept, since it appears to be related to a Black Hole! LOL
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