Black Hole Visualizer_
The black hole needs your GPU — try Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What you're looking at
This is a ray-traced black hole rendered live on your GPU. For every pixel, a light ray is traced backwards from your eye through curved spacetime using the Schwarzschild geodesic approximation — the same technique behind the famous Interstellar renders and scientific visualizations of M87* and Sagittarius A*.
Gravitational lensing
Gravity bends light. The glowing ring arcing over and under the shadow is not a special effect — it's the far side of the accretion disk, whose light is bent around the black hole on its way to you. Crank up Inclination and the disk flattens into the iconic "hat" shape.
The photon ring
Hugging the edge of the shadow is a razor-thin photon ring — light that orbited the black hole one or more full times before escaping. It marks the photon sphere at 1.5 Schwarzschild radii, the closest distance at which light can (unstably) orbit.
Doppler beaming
The disk orbits at a hefty fraction of the speed of light. Material rushing toward you gets relativistically boosted — brighter and bluer — while the receding side dims and reddens. That's why real black hole images are lopsided. Toggle Doppler Beaming to compare.
Keyboard shortcuts
Great for
🎓 Teaching relativity — lensing, photon ring & beaming, live
🎬 Sci-fi mood — your own Gargantua, fullscreen
✈️ Works offline — everything runs on your GPU
▸ Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ — Black Hole Visualizer
Is this black hole visualizer free?
Yes, completely free. No download, no account, no ads. It runs entirely in your browser using WebGL.
Is the gravitational lensing physically accurate?
The light bending uses the Schwarzschild geodesic approximation — each pixel's ray is integrated backwards through curved spacetime. That's why you see the far side of the disk lensed above and below the shadow, plus the photon ring. It's the same approach used in scientific visualizations, simplified just enough to run at 60 fps.
Why is one side of the disk brighter than the other?
That's relativistic doppler beaming. The disk material orbits at a significant fraction of the speed of light, so the side moving toward you appears dramatically brighter and bluer, while the receding side appears dimmer and redder. Toggle it in the sidebar to compare.
What is the thin bright ring around the shadow?
The photon ring — light that orbited the black hole one or more full times before escaping toward your eye. It appears naturally in this simulation because rays are actually traced through curved spacetime, not painted on.
It's slow on my machine — what can I do?
Switch Quality to "Low" in the sidebar. The simulation traces hundreds of curved ray steps per pixel, so resolution and step count matter. Low mode renders at reduced resolution and still looks great.
Does it work offline?
Yes, after the page loads once, the whole simulation runs locally on your GPU. No internet connection required.
Can I use it on a second monitor or TV?
Yes! Hit fullscreen and let it drift — it makes a stunning ambient display. The "Orbit Drift" slider slowly circles the camera around the black hole for a screensaver feel.
What do the presets simulate?
Gargantua recreates the warm, near-equatorial look from Interstellar. M87* mimics the orange, low-resolution feel of the Event Horizon Telescope image. Quasar is a hot, violent, blue-white disk. Edge-On shows the lensing "hat" at maximum drama.