Are black holes visible from earth

Question

Theres a bright star in the sky visible from seattle, wa and nevada so everyone is thinking its a black hole.... i dont. lol.

Answer 1

Black holes are black, that's where the name comes from.  Thus they are never visible.  Astronomers can detect them is several ways.  Material falling into them emits gamma rays.  Some black holes are members of binary systems, and their gravitational effect on visible stars can be seen.

The very bright object you mention is probably Jupiter.  Tomorrow night the Moon should appear quite close to it.

Answer 2

Black holes are BLACK, they are not visible. But they are detectable, and that is how we know they are there.

Answer 3

Well I'm glad you don't think this is a black hole! Black holes are a form of dark matter. All forms of dark matter are invisible because light does not reflect off of them. The bright object you are seeing is Jupiter, not a black hole.

The only way to detect black holes is by monitoring the radiation they emmit, or monitoring activity of objects near the black hole. If a black hole was showing up as bright as Jupiter every scientist in the scientist in the world would be scrambling trying to observe it, and yahoo would have an article on their page!

Answer 4

Black holes are not visible. Sounds like all of your friends are retards lol. But not you of course. Yeah they call black holes black because they are indeed black. The reason scientists can figure out their location is by watching how the mass around moves towards it.  

It's probably Jupiter. I saw it through my telescope half an hour ago.

Answer 5

We cannot see the black hole itself, but we can see the matter as it orbits it and is pulled in.

ut of curiosity, where is this star in the sky?  I might be able to figure out what it might be.  If it's low in the southern sky it's probably Jupiter.

Answer 6

Black holes are invisible so you are probably seeing a satillite or a nearby planet.

Answer 7

Black holes can only be detected when their huge gravity affects affects the light from another star(this process is called gravitational lensing) or when it starts attracting material from another star or nebula.

Answer 8

Well, by definition no.  A black hole is called that because the gravity surrounding a black hole is so great that not even light can escape it, so there is literally nothing to see.  The only way we know about the existence of black holes is by observing the effects of said black holes, for instance a "feeding" black hole will emit gamma rays from it's poles from all the matter being sucked in so quickly, or a galactic black hole can be observed by seeing how fast stars revolve around it.

Cheers

Answer 9

It's impossible to see a black hole with the naked eye because their gravity is so great not even light can escape from it. Most likely what you are looking at is Jupiter which is prominent in the night sky right now.

Answer 10

Well actually, there are quite a few black holes that are visible from Earth.  It just depends on how you observe them.  

You see, black holes are very strong emitters of x-ray radiation.

Two examples I can think of offhand are:

Cygnus X-1, the first black hole to be observed

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way