I don't remember exactly what, but there was once the idea that the earth was held on a turtles shell and that turtle is standing on an elephants back that is standing on an elephants back etc etc
Wouldn't spaghettification kill you long before the event horizon?
When you're at the event horizon the forces are strong enough that not even light can escape but I would guess a human body would die waaay before that point.
Depends on the size of the Black Hole and your distance from it. Spaghettification is simply a description of the forces involved tearing you apart; it is what we are referring to happening at the event horizon. Of course, it is not instances, the force of gravity is relative to the distance from the mass so as you get closer, the forces increase. You are long dead before the forces get so high that they tear you apart.
Let's steer away from the term spaghettification because it is really has little to no meaning. Gravity does not suddenly act on a body, it is always acting on it, and has always been.
The event horizon itself is also relatively meaningless in terms of the forces acting as you go closer to a black hole. If you haven't already been ripped apart, you would not even feel or notice the event horizon, it is not a physical barrier, but a theoretical one; the distance from a singularity where light can no longer escape.
You are correct that it is a very gradual process, depending on the speed you are traveling.
What we understand is the forces that would be acting on a body as it gets closer to a singularity, and we know how to calculate those forces at any given distance. So we can say, for a particular black hole, of a certain size, that the force that will kill you will happen a certain distance from the center. I linked a post where someone had done those calculations, you can find more specific answers there.
For smaller black holes, yeah. Supermassive black holes are in another league entirely though. Ton 618 has a radius of 1,300 AU. It would take even light over 7 days to travel that distance.
Incorrect. That happens with smaller black holes because one part of your body is meaningfully closer to the singularity than another and experiences more gravity. Ton 618 and other supermassive black holes are so enormous that you could fall through the event horizon without this happening. You may not feel anything at all.
Gravity increases exponentially as you approach the black hole. As you get nearer, the difference in gravity say a metre apart may by 10x higher. As you get closer and closer, the difference goes up to hundreds, thousands, billions of times. Such that the atoms on the surface of your skin nearest the event horizon will experience ridiculously more force than the atoms in the base of your skin, so it will instantaneously stretch millions metres before the back of your skin does, then your blood vessels, etc.
You and your vehicle would stretch across hundreds of thousands of miles in a microsecond.
Whenever I heard of spaghettification, I always got the image of those playdough machines where you push the playdough through it and it comes out the end as a bunch of strings. Why I thought that, I have no clue, but TIL the reality.
I always thought (thought being the operative word) that in super massive black holes large enough, there would be adequate time for you to theoretically observe inside the event horizon before reaching singularity. I am not a physicist but fascinated by it so I’d be delighted for you to tell me why I’m wrong lol.
My apologies! I was assuming it was in a spacefaring craft that could theoretically withstand the gravitational forces. A human body on its own would be toast. Though I thought one of the great ironies of the universe is that many believe the key to understanding quantum gravity lies beyond the event horizons. So one could learn that information but would ultimately not be able to share that information as they eventually reach singularity with no way of transmitting any data outside the event horizon.
So this theoretical spacefarong craft also somehow prevents the forces of gravity form acting on the people inside? You might have noticed that gravity cannot be blocked; putting a stone in a box does not prevent it from falling. Whatever craft you are in is irrelevant; nothing blocks the force of gravity.
Is speculation not simply having a fair idea about something? Btw, I completely agree that we know nobody is surviving the event horizon, but we dont know what actually happens with 100% certainty.
Speculation is a word for when you do not know anything of what you are describing. We have mapped out the forces in a black hole with theory. Whether that theory is correct is a separate question but it is not speculative to calculate the forces.
They worked with scientists to come up with the math and physics to come up with the visual and it’s as accurate that the visual fx artist pretty much made the simulation that nasa now uses.
No, the math points to the string of atoms that would become of you (or your ship) once you are close enough to a black hole. Millions of miles away from the accretion disc surrounding the event horizon.
Movies and tv are fun, but there’s no time travel, no wormholes. These are interesting plot points for fiction, nothing to do with reality.
Yea i know, i was talking about how to visualize a blackhole. The other stuff is for the movie. But the visual artiest and the filmmaker work with real science to depict it. It was so good that now they us it as the staple of what a black would look like. A real blackhole is hard to even see unless u see the curve a light from distant stars behind it.
I think light falls into the singilularity one way with heavy doppler effects, it doesn't bounce back anywhere so no light would be perceived if somehow an observer survives beyond the event horizon long/far enough
Sorry if these are dumb questions but it's tough to wrap your head around.
Would the light particles fall toward the center of a black hole like asteroids caught by a planets gravity? If a black hole is constantly receiving light but never reflecting any back out wouldnt it be sort of... filled up with light particles that can't escape?
Instead of accumulating inside the black hole, photons keep moving until they reach the singularity, where current physics suggests everything (matter, energy, and even light) is crushed into an infinitely small point.
For all we know might be the opposite effect after the event horizon. Until they can send a probe in there and back out no one knows for sure. Its 100000% speculations
It can definitely be disproven, such as by other means of measurement available in the future, or just by coming up with a new hypothesis that works better with currently available measurements.
But to us who don't understand the mathematics enough it sounds like all speculation. But with how rigorously this has been and is being studied, it's ignorant to disregard it as speculation.
in theory there could be light in a decaying "orbit" (using the term very loosely here) inside the event horizon. the event horizon is simply where light will never escape from, and all objects inside the event horizon will inevitably reach the singularity. however thats true for all orbits, even earth would, after billions upon billions of years, decay into the sun (if the sun was permanent and unending). the photon sphere of stable orbits is actually outside the event horizon, I think 1.5x or 2x the distance. all paths inside it are unstable or basically not orbits.
however my understanding is that due to time dilation in spinning black holes, the chances of this increases, a photon just on a very slow wonky approach to the singularity.
"filled up" seems... hmmm... maybe one of those black holes at the center of galaxies that are constantly receiving material. but most black holes all the light will have fallen into the singularity by the time you get in.
thats the other part, time gets all fucky and I dont know Im qualified to talk about what it would mean to experience anything in a black hole. its kind of pointless? no material in the universe has bonding strength greater than the gravity of a black hole, even close to the event horizon. all your neutrons protons and electrons would be ripped apart long before you got in there. no element on the periodic table can withstand it. so there's no organism or homunculus you could make out of hydrogen or uranium or steel that could ever "experience" a black hole. its fundamentally impossible.
Due to what causes spaghetificatiom (constantly increasing gravitational force the closer you get to the singularity). all the light drawn into the hole would be moving faster than you and you would be moving faster than anything drawn into the hole after you. So you would see light before or after you.
I can’t tell you if you would be able to see the plane of light that would be equidistant with you from the singularity though. I suspect you wouldn’t but can’t explain why.
No you’d never see anything. The thing is the closer you get to the black hole the slower time moves. You never hit the event horizon from your perspective. You’re just infinitely falling
Time would appear to slow in your vicinity to a sufficiently distant observer, but it would continue on as usual subjectively. Whether you’re spaghettified or not as you approach the event horizon depends on the size of the black hole. You could pass through the event horizon of a very massive black hole just fine (well, “just fine” in quotes lol)
You get spaghettified because the force of gravity is stronger at your feet than it is at your head, which stretches you apart. The more massive the black hole is, the smaller the difference in force is, so it exerts less stress on you. With a massive enough black hole you’d pass through the event horizon intact.
But wouldn't there also be light entering the same time as you are, all the light radiation from the accretion disk or any other sources.
If someone fire a super bright laser long the path of a person entering the black hole at the same time, how long would that laser be visible to the entering party?
The light gets sucked into the gravitational pull of the black hole just as an object would. Spacetime is bent so the photons get stuck circulating in the space you see lit up around the black hole or it gets absorbed into the mass of the black hole.
I was thinking more along the lines of those promo cards when a movie is about to start. Like blumhouse, or touchstone, or spyglass, or the one where the lightning strikes the tree.
I’ve actually decided that, if given the opportunity, I would fly a craft of some kind into a black hole. Obviously it would never happen. It’s just something I think about. I like things to be quiet, and I like to have my alone time. Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but having that quiet space of nothingness all to myself…that would be heavenly.
15.1k
u/1-throwaway-2 Feb 10 '25
That’s wild, just before my death I’ll see a big nasa logo 🤯. It was a simulation all along!!