WHAT IF WE ENTER THE BLACK HOLE?

What happens when you fall into a black hole?

A black hole is a place where the laws of physics as we know them break down. Einstein taught
us that gravity warps space itself, causing it to curve. So given a dense enough object, space-time
can become so warped that it twists in on itself, burrowing a hole through the very fabric of
reality.

A massive star that has run out of fuel can produce the kind of extreme density needed to create
such a mangled bit of world. As it buckles under its own weight and collapses inward, space-
time caves in with it. The gravitational field becomes so strong that not even light can escape,
rendering the region where the star used to be profoundly dark: a black hole.

As you go deeper into the black hole, space becomes ever more curvy.

The outermost boundary of the hole is its event horizon, the point at which the gravitational force
precisely counteracts the light's efforts to escape it. Go closer than this, and there's no escape.

The event horizon is ablaze with energy. Quantum effects at the edge create streams of hot
particles that radiate back out into the universe. This is called Hawking radiation, after the
physicist Stephen Hawking, who predicted it. Given enough time, the black hole will radiate
away its mass, and vanish.
Black holes warp space and time to such an extreme that inside the black hole's horizon, space
and time actually swap roles. In a sense, it really is time that pulls you in toward the singularity.

The laws of physics require that you be both outside the black hole in a pile of ashes and inside
the black hole alive and well. Last but not least, there's a third law of physics that says
information can't be cloned. You have to be in two places, but there can only be one copy of you.

Somehow, the laws of physics point us towards a conclusion that seems rather nonsensical.
Physicists call this infuriating conundrum the black hole information paradox. Luckily, in the
1990s they found a way to resolve it.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ENTER A BLACK HOLE

Let's first look at the closest black hole to Earth, called V4641 Sgr for the star that orbits it. Black
holes, by definition, are invisible, so astronomers usually find them by the stars and gas that orbit
around them. Calculating the distance to a black hole is equally hard as finding one, but as far as we
know, V4641 Sgr is between 1,600 and 24,000 light years away, located in the direction of the
constellation Sagittarius.
Small But Deadly
V4641 Sgr is an example of a small black hole. It's two to three times more massive than our sun, and
all that mass is confined to a space less than 4 miles across. This means the center of the black hole,
called the singularity, is incredibly dense and therefore has a colossal gravitational pull, strong
enough to trap light and everything else that comes too close.

This also means that as you approach the black hole, you'll see blackness blotting out light from
distant stars. But that's not all you'll see. Black holes distort the space around them, which in turn,
bends the path along which passing light travels. As a result, you'll begin to see some very weird
stuff upon your approach. Something like this:

Andrew Hamilton The outer ring is the result of gravitational lensing, when gravity bends light,
distorting and magnifying what we would otherwise see in the absence of a strong gravitational
force. Anything with a strong gravitational pull can create gravitational lensing, including massive
galaxies and galaxy clusters.

The edge of a black hole — outlining the black circle in the animation above — is called the event
horizon. It is known as the point of no return, or the exit door of the universe. Whatever passes the
event horizon, including you, can never return because the black hole's pull is too strong to escape,
even if you're traveling at the speed of light.

Small black holes are especially lethal because they have very large tidal forces that will stretch you
paper-thin before you even reach the event horizon.

Spaghettification
This stretching action is called spaghettification because you look like a very long piece of
unappetizing spaghetti when the tidal forces are done with you. One example of these tidal forces
that will be pulling you apart, first explained by Isaac Newton, are tides on Earth. They're caused by
the gravitational interaction between the Moon and our planet.

Whichever side of Earth faces the Moon is the side that is closest and therefore feels the strongest
gravitational tug compared to the opposite, farther side. The same thing happens to your body when
you're nearing a black hole. Here's what spaghettification would do to a spacecraft:
Black holes stretch anything that dares to close. stargazer Say you're fearless — after all, you're
entering a black hole — and you go head-first toward the blackness. The top of your head is going
to be closer to the black hole's center, called the singularity, than your feet. As a result, gravity's
influence on your head will pull you toward the center of the black hole more than your feet,
stretching you spaghetti-thin in the process.
Eventually, you're stretched to the point you begin to break down into individual atoms. And it does
not take an expert to tell you that this would be a most unpleasant way to die! If you try to enter a
black hole, you will get spaghettified no matter what. But a small black hole is going to kill you faster
than a supermassive black hole, like the one at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

Going Supermassive
Approximately 25,000 light years from Earth, at the center of our galaxy, there is thought to be a
supermassive black hole that is 4.3 million times more massive than our sun. But, if you travel the
distance to this larger black hole, you'll get close to the event horizon, and even pass it while still
alive and coherent. The view might make you feel a little off kilter at first but will be totally worth it:

Andrew Hamilton Why can you get closer to a large black hole? It's because the event horizon is
farther from the center. This means that the tidal forces at the event horizon are weaker — if the
Moon were farther from Earth, we would have smaller tides for the same reason. Therefore, you
would not start to get spaghettified until after you entered the black hole.

As you fell closer toward the event horizon, the gravitational force around you would grow. This
means it would bend the light that reached your eyes more strongly, which is what you're seeing in
the animation above. Moreover, time would tick more slowly the deeper you fell into the black hole.

From your perspective, time would tick on as usual, but from an outsider's perspective, like someone
on Earth, you would age very slowly. This phenomenon is called gravitational time dilation.

As you fall closer to the event horizon, the blackness will grow, eventually covering your entire field
of view. When that happens, when you see only darkness, then you'll know that you're inside of a
black hole. The last opportunity to see the universe you're leaving, forever, will be directly behind
you and will be a tiny point of light. After that, gravity will drag you toward the singularity at the
speed of light and ultimately spaghettify you.

Physicists are working on the problem in the laboratory by creating acoustic black holes —
singularities that are strong enough to trap sound, but not light. The mathematics behind acoustic
black holes are the same, however, which offers a good starting point to better understand what
takes place inside these bizarre cosmic phenomena.