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For 2022's Black Hole's Week,

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NASA wanted to create

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a data-driven visualization

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of a new database of black holess

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that have been observed co-orbiting

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and feeding upon their stellar companions.

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Tabulated data was provided by

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Dr Jeremy Schnittman, which

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represented many geometric characteristics

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of these black hole systems

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like the black hole mass,

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the star mass,

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the space between them,

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and their shared orbital period.

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Inspired by Dr Dan Fabrycky’s

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Kepler exoplanet orrery,

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NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

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set out to create an orrery of

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Dr Schnittman’s 22 black hole systems.

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By applying the database attributes

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to simple geometry,

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and by inferring other characteristics

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through physical equations and

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informed estimates, they were able

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to use advanced Hollywood

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visual effects tools to bring

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each black hole system to life.

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Arranging them in an

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optimal shape proved difficult,

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with early attempts including a 3D spiral

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and even clockwork gadgetry.

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But the most decipherable layout

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proved to be a series of

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concentric rings,

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with the largest black hole system,

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GRS 1915, at the center.

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When communicating with data,

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it is often more important to

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make something understandable

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than it is to make it photographically real.

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In reality, all of the black hole

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event horizon dots at the center

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of each accretion disk would be

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smaller than a single image pixel,

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but for this sequence they are

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sized proportionally to their mass

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to make it clear that they are indeed

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black holes.

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Their minuscule sizes were also

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the reason no gravitational lensing

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is apparent. Orbit lines were added later

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to illustrate the sometimes surprising

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gravitational influence each of these

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massive objects has on its companion.

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The gravitational warping of each star

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and the differential rotation speed

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of each accretion disk was mathematically derived

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from the source data. Each accretion disk

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was comprised of 2000 textured particles.

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It took almost 3 weeks running across the

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studio’s 100 render farm machines to generate

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the final videos of the orrery and each

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black hole system in close-up,

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generating 27 thousand 4k final image frames.

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There are likely many more black holes

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with companion stars yet to be observed,

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and we look forward to seeing this dataset

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and visualization grow and evolve over time.