Post #2by ogg » 16.09.2003, 07:32
sorry, I don't have any artist impressions handy but here's some basic assumptions about realism (please correct me anyone!)
- any infalling gas will be very hot (ie X-ray hot) near the throat of the hole and will blaze off a very bright, blue-white light. It's the temperature of the gas which gives it its colour - not the source of it. At the moment, with all of it the same colour as the surface of the red giant, it looks as though it's all the same temperature, which it won't be...
Of course the whole spiralling cloud might glow from being ionized by the X-rays further in - like an emission nebula (eg Rosetta?)
either way though the gas innermost to the hole would have to be more pronounced, I would think.
___________
ogg
___________
