Realistically, what can I do?Īs you get closer to the black hole, the signals you’re sending are undergoing increased gravitational redshift as the photons climb out of the gravitational well. It’s probably time to start signalling for help, so you send a radio signal to the distant space station from where I’m observing things as best I can. ![]() You haven’t even reached the weird stuff – this is fairly conventional mechanics – though already you might realise you’re in trouble. So if you happened to be near a supermassive black hole, you could cross the event horizon without really noticing.Because the disc is flat, moving around what you’re going to think of as the equator of the black hole, you might try to get yourself ‘above’ or ‘below’ the disc, but you’ll be pulled back into alignment. In fact, the larger the black hole, the weaker the tidal forces near its event horizon. For a solar mass black hole, the tidal forces near the event horizon can be quite large, but for a supermassive black hole they aren’t very large at all. Unfortunately, this goes along with those who suspect black holes are actually some sort of portal. Many people think that it is at the event horizon where you would be ripped apart, and at the event horizon all sorts of strange things occur. The sky would simply appear more and more black until you reach the event horizon. What you would see is the darkness of the black hole fill your view and as you approached the event horizon you would see stars and galaxies on the edge of your view being gravitationally lensed by the black hole. Would you see then? Contrary to popular belief, you would not see the entire future of the universe flash before you. Hypothetically, if you could survive crossing the event horizon of a black hole, what Credit: Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo Library Artist’s conception of the event horizon of a black hole. If they could still see you past this point, there would be additional red from the inside of you clouding up the view. Your friend would see you redden and dim as you approach, but never quite reach, the event horizon of the black hole. So as you approached the black hole you would appear more and more reddish, and your image would appear dimmer and dimmer. As you fall towards it, gravity would cause any light coming from you to be redshifted. Why won’t you ever listen?Ī friend watching you fall toward a black hole would never see you reach the black hole. You wouldn’t survive falling toward a black hole because you wouldn’t listen. I’ve made up some other names for it, such as My Own Private String Cheese Incident, “the soft-serve effect” and “AAAHHHHH AHHHH MY LEGS MY LEGS!!!”. This effect of tidal stretching is sometimes boringly referred to as spaghettification. Eventually the tidal forces would become so strong that they would rip you apart. Because of the tidal forces it would feel as if you are being stretched head to toe, while your sides would feel like they are being pushed inward. ![]() These differences in forces are called tidal forces. As you got closer, your feet would feel a stronger force than your head, for example. Suppose you were falling feet first toward a black hole. ![]() Technically this is always true, but you wouldn’t notice it… at least at first. As you get closer, the gravitational forces on various parts of your and your dragon’s body would be different. ![]() But, as we’ve agreed, you’re ignoring my advice and flying dragon first into this physics nightmare. The gravity of a black hole is just like the gravity of any other large mass, as long as you don’t get too close. If you were falling toward a black hole, most of the time you would simply feel weightless, just as if you were playing Bowie songs and floating in a most peculiar way in the International Space Station.
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