Physicist: Terrible, terrible things.
The first thing you’ll be likely to notice as you approach the hole is the tidal forces. Tidal forces are nothing more than the difference in gravitational force between the near and far side of an object, and they aren’t particular to blackholes. For example, the tidal force of the moon on the Earth causes tides (hence the name). For any reasonable sized blackhole (less than thousands of suns), the tidal force between different parts of your body will be greater than your body’s ability to stay intact, so you’ll be pulled apart in the up-down direction. For much more obscure reasons, you’ll also be crushed from the sides. These two effects combined are called “spagettification”. Seriously. Assuming that you somehow survive spagettification, or that you’re falling into an super-massive blackhole (which is ironically much more gentle than a smaller blackhole) then you can look forward to some bizarre time effects.
It’s been established for decades that “time moves slower the lower”. For example, GPS satellites have to deal with an additional 45 microseconds every day due to their altitude (they move through time faster). Also, one way to think about gravity is as a “bending” of the time direction downward. In this way anything that moves forward in time will also naturally move downward. At the event horizon of a blackhole (the outer boundary) time literally points straight down. As a result, escaping from a blackhole is no more difficult than going back in time. Once you’re inside all directions literally point toward the singularity in the center (since no matter what direction you move in will be toward the future).
We don’t experience time moving at different rates or being position dependent, so when we start talking about messed up spacetime it’s useful to look at things from more than one point of view.
From an outsider’s perspective (far from the blackhole): As someone falls in they will move slower and slower through time. They will appear redder, colder, and dimmer. As they approach the event horizon their movement through time will halt, as they fade completely from view. Technically, you’ll never actually see someone fall into a blackhole, you’ll just see them get really close.
From an insider’s perspective (falling into the blackhole): First, torn apart and crushed. Things farther from the blackhole move through time faster, so the rest of the universe will speed up from your point of view. As a result the rest of the universe becomes bluer, hotter, and brighter. The blue shift of the incoming light turns it into gamma rays. So, right before you pass through the event horizon, you’ll get nuked with a universe’s lifetime worth of starlight and microwave background radiation turned into nuking nastiness. The event horizon itself is only special from an outside perspective. If you fall in you should pass right through it. However, what you see in the moment that you pass through the horizon is dependent on things we don’t know yet.
-If the blackhole lasts until the universe ends (assuming that the universe ends), then you’ll see the entire history of the universe whip by (bluely). You’ll then find yourself face to face with the singularity. At that point you go away, according to the math. However, the universe is slippery like a greased up eel fresh from the bar exam. It always finds a way to not have singularities where the math predicts it. So, to be safe, I’ll say “no one knows what happens then”.
-If the blackhole evaporates, then all the matter that (almost) gets to the horizon will be torn apart and reappropriated as Hawking radiation. If you were to survive, then you would find yourself as close to the horizon as (for uncertainty reasons) it is possible to be, and you would ride it in as it shrinks. In a blink you’d suddenly find yourself floating around right next to an amazing explosion, as the last of the blackhole evaporates.
will a blackhole happen 2012
Nope.
What are the reasons for why a larger black hole won’t spaghettifcate you like a small hole will?
The gravity at the event horizon of either black hole is the same (by definition), but spagettification is a tidal force effect. It’s dependent on the rate at which the gravitational force changes.
With a super massive black hole you could be a light year away and feel it, whereas you could be in the same room as a micro black hole and not notice it.
The smaller hole’s gravity ramps up really fast, while the larger hole’s gravity increases more gradually.
I’ve learned from a few websites that a black hole’s gravity is enough to pull molecular bonds apart. Well, I’m wondering what would happen to the molecules themselves once they’re all just one particle (what I’m trying to explain is, “What would happen once molecules get pulled down to just the molecules themselves?”) And one more question, what happens to the light once it reaches gamma rays? For example say the event horizon was large enough for more “spagettification”. Is there anything larger than gamma rays? (Sorry I’m a huge question-asker)
Gamma rays are defined as photons with a frequency above 10^19 Hz. But more generally, “gamma ray” just refers to very high energy photons. So, by definition, there isn’t a kind of light past gamma rays.
A black hole’s tidal forces (same type of force that produces tides on Earth) are responsible for pulling stuff apart. Once stuff is reduced to a bunch of particles, pulled apart from each other, the reduction stops.
Sorry it may sound dubious but what will happen if a substance has double gravity then the blackhole itself and is moving towards blackhole with a massive force. Will the blackhole tries to get merge into it or will it create a short circuit (don’t know the correct term) and will be able to blow up the blackhole itself.
The best you could hope for is a really weirdly shaped, oscillating black hole. But, in short order, you’ll still be left with a black hole (just bigger).
Thank you for your reply
So you mean to say even if a comet which is 1000 times bigger then our Sun and running at a massive speed if hits a black hole it will still result in a black hole just a weird one.
Well, if it’s substantially bigger (in size) than the black hole, you’d expect the black hole to just “core the apple”, and eat a hole through the comet.
Whenever you add mass to a black hole it wobbles and vibrates, but will eventually settle down.
It you smack a black hole with something bigger, then it may be more natural to talk about hitting the bigger thing with the black hole.
They say that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. They also say that our Sun travels to galactic center every 250 million years. What we can expect when the Sun reaches there?
Will that supermassive blackhole will eat up our solar system?
Nope!
The Sun (with solar system in tow) orbits the galaxy every 250 million years (roughly). Lucky for us we never get close to the center, just cruise in a huge circle around it.
People talk about doomsday. As you said that it will not be because of blackhole. What about Nibiru?
I have found many links on Nibiru. Some of them say that Nibiru is 12th planet (which is not true). But I have read somewhere that it is indeed a planet but not from our solar system but from another solar system from another galaxy. They say that the sun of the solar system which Nibiru belongs is vanished and now Nibiru rotates around our sun and comes near it every 3600 years.
How much true it is?
Fortunately for us: none of it.
There is no genuine evidence that Nibiru exists, either direct or indirect. No images, no lensing effects, no gravitational influence, nothing.
If you look carefully into all of the information about Nibiru you’ll find that it comes from dreams, or bible codes, or the Mayans, or stuff like that. And the Mayans, although entirely kick-ass, could not see the future.
Although it is possible that there are other large masses in the distant corners of the solar system (every now and again we find another dwarf planet), there are no orbits that could bring a planet-mass object from beyond our ability to easily detect it all the way to Earth’s orbit by 2012. Such a path would be “hyperbolic“, which means that no one would ever have seen Nibiru before.
How about a black hole in your bedroom on floor? When I was 9, I was sleeping in my brothers room as they were scared. I was sleeping on top bunk and fell off during the night, and woke to be half in the floor screaming. My two brothers woke and started screaming also. Save her! Save me! We screamed! I felt something pulling me down lightly. My brothers got me out n we cuddled each other spooky tight and cried ourselves to sleep.
We have never spoken of this, as we must of all thought it was a bad dream.
20 years later, I brought up this black hole and my youngest neo said, ” oh my god, and then we saved uT and pulled u out. Duck! That was real, he said…
What was that black hole??
Experiment being more informative than theory, I’d have to ask you.
That being said; it sounds more like an ordinary hole than a black hole.
can a black hole eat another black hole and cancel each other out?
why cant we see black holes when we are using high end technology and why can’t we use a black hole to travel in time rather using a worm hole. people are still in chaos about this unseen dark energy. can we ever be able to make out what is there inside it or will we land up like others with broken hope of seeing right through it.
Do you believe that possibly going into a black hole or worm hole would send you through time, another dimension, galaxy, etc. And is it possible to go through time being faster than the speed of light?
is it true if you keep going straight in space that in like alot of years you go back to the place you started?
No.
But, if your question is “is the universe closed like the surface of a sphere?”, then maybe!
so would there be a way in the void? like outside the sphere that u are talking about
It is said that nothing can escape from blackhole,but if anything faster than light (assumatiom)gets into it what will happen.
I suppose it could get out?
Thanks for the reply.but which end wil we get out,is there an end of it leding to a another world.
We’ve gotten this sort of question before!
First here, and again here, are some answers.
If we travel faster than light,can we see our future.how is time machine related to it.again i have learnt that if we travel at the speed of it is converted to energy itself.what kind of energy is it.
I was always under the impression that if you could pass the event horizon than you may end up in another universe or in a different part of our universe. Is this incorrect? Could you not use a blackhole as a natural teleport to another universe or a far off part of our own universe?
Also what is the difference then between a black hole and a wormhole?
Good question!
Luckily, there’s an answer here: Q: What’s the difference between black holes and worm holes? Could black holes take you to other universes?
totally tried to understand that, totally did not understand that.
DAMN nature, you scary
Space is so . . . . . . AAHH >:(
What will be the last thing that the light emitting source and sensor bot would record records before it perceives the
blackness of the black hole?
What light source and sensor bot is this?
I’m sorry for asking a dumb question.
Why couldn’t something exceed the speed of light? And why is light linked to time? So if I go faster than light, what will happen to me?
Those are great questions!
In fact, we’ve covered this sort of thing in old posts; “Why is the speed of light the fastest speed? Why is light so special?” and “Hyperspace, warp drives, and faster than light travel: why not?”
At it’s most basic, no matter how you move light always moves past you at the speed of light (670,616,629 mph). So even if you get in a rocket and get going at 300,000,000 mph, light will still be moving 670,616,629 mph faster. So, no matter how fast you try to go, you still never even start to approach light speed.
That flies in the face of any reasonable intuition, and shouldn’t make any sense at all. But there’s nothing for it; it’s been verified by every experiment to date. Since there’s a special speed that never changes, the notions of time and distance have to change instead. That’s the thumbnail-sketch of the connection between light speed and time.
Could a black hole ever enter our solar system? If yes then how could planetary gravity effect the situation?
How would you get ripped from a black hole
I like all the answers you gave me from “what happens when you get sucked into a black hole
If light, as we know it, is measured by the reflection of the sun, how can we measure speed by other, comparative, standards?
After reading all things i understood that if any body falls on black hole it teared into peases but i have read some where that the particle become small.is it so?please anyone give me reply to my email I.D. thank you for reading my comment…
Mr. Physicist, could you explain the difference between spiraling into a (non-rotating, chargeless) black hole and falling into it straight down? I find very different descriptions of a journey into a black hole in various web discussions, and I suspect it is because the physicists answering the question are not making it clear what the assumptions are. I understand that it would probably not be possible to fall straight down, but I still wonder what it would be like (that seems like the most symmetrical and simple situation).
Let me elaborate my question. It seems to me that at the event horizon when falling straight down feet first I would see the entire future of the universe in a small dot directly over my head. Just after passing over the event horizon no light would reach my eye(s) from any direction because I would be traveling faster than the light behind me and the light in front would recede faster from me than I was advancing. Thus, I would no longer be able to see my feet! (But, do I still feel the tidal stretching of my legs, even though I can’t see them?)
While I’m at it, I’ll expand on my question a bit. In scouring the web it seems that authorities agree that if we manage to hover just above the horizon the universe will appear as a small dot over our head. However, authorities also agree that once we pass through the horizon (or free-fall through it without dallying) then the outside world will appear as a thin band around our head. How do we reconcile these two images? How can we move smoothly from the “universe as a dot above our head” to the “universe as a band about our head”? And, how do we see anything from a position on the inside of the horizon (isn’t space moving away from us faster than the speed of light in all directions)? As you can see, I’m terribly confused.
does the black hole in the middle if the milky way get any bigger? and if yes then when will it reach us?
We do occasionally see things fall into our galaxy’s central black hole (Sagittarius A*). In falling gas gets very hot and is easy to spot because of it.
However, saying that it’s very far away is an understatement. Our best telescopes at present can barely detect its presence at all.
There isn’t enough mass in the Milky Way to make Sagittarius A* big enough to be seen, let alone big enough to fill up the 26,000 light years between where it is and where we are.
We’re pretty safe!
So wait, if a black hole is so dense it bends space-time to the point of light not escaping the pull, why is radiation spewing out of it? Why can it escape?
That radiation is called “Hawking Radiation“, and it’s pretty subtle. It basically comes from particle pairs appearing on either side of the horizon, with one falling in and the other (appearing just above the horizon) able to escape (sometimes).
Black holes are simple made mater or antimater? If it is made of mater, It’s wierd, I mean, no mater can reach speedlight. If is made of antimater, well what would be antimater? If it is the oppose of mater, It have no mass? Sorry if i’m little dumb on this, but i’m very curious.
We read reports of the detection of light and radiation from the early universe very soon after the Big Bang, which has been traveling to us for billions of years. How do we get here so fast ahead of this speeding light and radiation, and when the universe has the speed of light as the speed limit for all its objects?
Is the explanation for this that the early universe experienced massive-faster-the-speed-of-light inflation, powered by some force which has mysteriously and suddenly abated? Would this on-off force creating this inflation be one outside of laws
governing our internal universe?
@Jim
This is going to be a post pretty soon. You’ll be relieved to know that the laws of the universe don’t need to do anything special to explain this. It has to do with the (inaccurate) way the Big Bang is generally portrayed; as the universe exploding from a point, and expanding away from it. If it were as straight forward as an explosion happening somewhere and everything expanding away from that place, then you’d be exactly right; the light from the Big Bang would have passed by and been gone immediately.
The more accurate description is a little subtle, and needs some pictures.
Which is faster and why?
Speed of Light?
or Speed of Sound?
Thanks 🙂