What black hole fate? Ask NASA's sims

NASA released simulations that imagine what it would be like to fall into a black hole. The visualizations were created by astrophysicist Jeremy Schnittman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and are available on Goddard's YouTube page.

The simulations offer a trip toward a virtual supermassive black hole with a mass 4.3 million times that of the sun, similar to the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Viewers experience a rapid fall toward the event horizon, a "point of no return" where light and radiation can't escape. As the camera reaches the speed of light, an accretion disk of hot, glowing gas becomes distorted due to warping spacetime. Eventually, the viewer rushes toward the black hole's singularity, a one-dimensional center where the laws of physics break down.

According to Schnittman, "I simulated two different scenarios: one where a camera...just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate." The first simulation depicts this fatal plunge, while the alternate version shows a viewer narrowly escaping.

Schnittman also noted the dangers of smaller, stellar-mass black holes: "Stellar-mass black holes...possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon. This process, known as spaghettification, would result in a quick end, in just 12.8 seconds for this particular black hole."

NASA explained the time-bending effects near a strong gravitational source: if an astronaut flew near the event horizon and returned, they would be younger than those who remained farther away. Schnittman added that a rapidly rotating black hole, like in the film 'Interstellar', would result in an explorer returning "many years younger than her shipmates."

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Sources/URLs mentioned:

• NASA simulations: https://science.nasa.gov/supermassive-black-holes/new-nasa-black-hole-visualization-takes-viewers-beyond-the-brink/
• Goddard YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@NASAGoddard
• Explanations for extended versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chhcwk4-esM&t=7s
• First simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crXGmeWFb9o
• Second simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGEIsnBRWGs
• NASA's explanation of time dilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgF46YYPplI
• Interstellar IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/
• Discovery of first black hole in 1964: https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/yba/CygX1_mass/cygX1_more.html
• NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center: https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/
• NASA Center for Climate Simulation: https://www.nccs.nasa.gov/
• Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/
• Black hole types: https://science.nasa.gov/universe/black-holes/types/
• Spaghettification: https://science.nasa.gov/universe/what-happens-when-something-gets-too-close-to-a-black-hole/