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Michelle Wong

For decades filmmakers have imagined what a black hole looks like and have usually come up with a similar visual: a round dark centre surrounded by swirling, glowing matter.
Portrayals of the cosmic phenomenon rarely deviate significantly from one another mostly because that was how Albert Einstein had described black holes (and there are only a number of ways to depict a hole that is black, after all).
Now thanks to an international team of scientists, an image of a real black hole was unveiled this week – and it turns out Einstein was pretty close to the mark.
We look at five sci-fi movies that feature these singularities to see how accurate they were in their depiction.

High Life (2018)
High Life is the first science fiction film – and first English-language film – by French art-house director Claire Denis.
The film focuses on a group of prisoners on a space mission to a black hole in hopes of finding an alternate energy source.
Physicist Aurélien Barrau is listed as a “Cosmic Companion” of the movie, while French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy and astronaut instructor Laura André-Boyet were also science consultants to the movie cast and crew, according to website Sloan Science and Film.
The black hole featured in the film is pretty close to the real image released by the scientists this week.

Interstellar (2014)
Directed by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar follows a small group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humanity.
The film is noted for its scientific accuracy and its imagining of a black hole, called Gargantua, has since become iconic. Nolan even brought famous US physicist Kip Thorne on board to help with the depiction.
Black hole photo turns this US scientist, 29, into overnight star
The movie’s glowing circle with a line running around the middle might not look the same as the image released this week, but Kazunori Akiyama, the researcher who led the team that unveiled the image, said it was almost correct.
He told tech website Gizmodo that the image the team took might have been taken from an angle where such a ring was not visible – just like how Saturn’s ring would not appear the same way when the planet is viewed from the top or bottom.

Star Trek (2009)
The 11th film in the Star Trek franchise, the 2009 movie follows the USS Enterprise as it combats an extraterrestrial humanoid species from the future which threatens their planets by creating artificial black holes.
Trolls wage ‘sexist vendetta’ against black hole scientist Katie Bouman
The black hole in the film was depicted as having a bright white crackling border resembling a sort of lightning field.

Event Horizon (1997)
Starring Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne, Event Horizon was set in 2047 and followed the crew of a spaceship on a rescue mission after the mysterious appearance of a missing spaceship around Neptune.
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With the tagline “Infinite Space, Infinite Terror”, Event Horizon was not one for the faint of heart. Its black hole started as a burst of light before the hole appears surrounded by swirly, cloudlike borders, before disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

The Black Hole (1979)
Released 40 years ago and directed by Gary Nelson, The Black Hole was the first movie from Disney to receive a PG rating.
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In the movie, a research vessel finds a missing ship commanded by a mysterious scientist on the edge of a black hole that looks like a blue whirlpool in space.


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Cinema

Black holes in films: from Interstellar to Star Trek, 5 movies that imagined the cosmic phenomenon

A Twitter post that compares a black hole portrayed in the 2014 sci-fi movie Interstellar and the real image captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project

A Twitter post that compares a black hole portrayed in the 2018 movie High Life and the real image .captured by  the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project

Youtube screen grab of Event Horizon Photo: YOUTUBE[FEATURES 2019]

A screenshot from the movie Star Trek (2009)

A screenshot from the 1979 movie The Black Hole

A photo provided by the European Southern Observatory on Wednesday showing the first photograph of a black hole and its fiery halo. Photo: AFP

Online trolls wage ‘sexist vendetta’ against black hole scientist Katie Bouman using photo of team member Andrew Chael – but he fights back

A photo of Andrew Chael (left) and Katie Bouman. Photo: Andrew Chael/Twitter

A now-deleted picture of Andrew Chael posted on Reddit.

China’s astronomers helped capture photo of black hole but couldn’t use world’s biggest telescope to do it

Chinese scientists helped create the breakthrough image of a black hole by capturing the last glimmerings of energy falling into it. Photo: Reuters

Components of the Event Horizon Telescope project

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), in South Pole. Photo: EHT website

This picture taken on September 24, 2016 shows the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in Pingtang, in southwestern China's Guizhou province. Humanity's best bet at detecting aliens is a giant silver Chinese dish the size of 30 football fields -- one that simultaneously showcases Beijing's abilities to deploy cutting-edge technologies and ignore objectors' rights as it seeks global prominence. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

The Wandering Earth could be the film to spark China’s science fiction moviemaking

Wu Jing in a still from The Wandering Earth. Photo: Future Affairs Administration

Qu Chuxiao in a still from The Wandering Earth. Photo: Future Affairs Administration. MUST CREDIT

A still from The Wandering Earth. Photo: Future Affairs Administration. MUST CREDIT

Wu Jing in a still from The Wandering Earth. Photo: Future Affairs Administration. MUST CREDIT

Frant Gwo, director of The Wandering Earth. Photo: Xun. MUST CREDIT

Black hole photo turns US scientist Katie Bouman, 29, into overnight star

Computer scientist Katie Bouman. Photo: Facebook

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Plenty of films over the years have had a go at portraying what a real black hole looks like, with some even bringing in physicists as consultants
We take a look at five of the more memorable to see how accurate they were


Plenty of films have had a go at portraying what a real black hole looks like, with some even bringing in physicists as consultants. We take a look at five of the more memorable, including Interstellar, Star Trek and Event Horizon.


Space