Can a person enter a black hole to study and survive on the event horizon?

To solve the mysteries of black holes, humans will simply have to take risks. However, there’s a pretty complicated pickup: a human can only do this if he’s The black hole Huge and isolated, so a person entering a black hole wouldn’t expect to communicate the results to anyone in the entire universe.

We are both physicists who study black holes, but at a very safe distance. Black holes are among the most abundant astrophysical objects in our universe. These interesting things seem to be an essential component of the evolution of the universe, the the Big Bang till today. They may have had an influence on the formation of human life in our galaxy.

Two types of black holes

The universe is filled with a huge zoo of different types of black holes.

They can vary in size and be electrically charged, much like electrons or protons are found in atoms. Some black holes are already spinning. There are two types of black holes relevant to our discussion. The first does not rotate, is electrically neutral – which means neither positive nor negative – and has the mass of our Sun. The second type is a supermassive black hole, its mass is millions if not billions of times the mass of our sun.

Apart from the difference in mass between the two types of black holes, what also sets them apart is the distance between their centers and “the event horizon” – a measure called radial distance. A black hole’s event horizon is a point of no return. Anything beyond this point will be engulfed by the black hole and will disappear forever from our known universe.

The distance from the center of mass of a black hole to where the force of gravity is too strong to overcome is called the event horizon. Credit: Liu & Shanshan, CC BY-ND

On the event horizon, the black hole’s gravitational pull is so strong that no mechanical force can overcome or cancel it. Even light, the fastest thing in our world, cannot escape – hence the term “black hole”.

The radial size of the event horizon depends on the mass of the black hole in question and is essential for the appearance of a person when falling into a single black hole. For a black hole of the mass of our Sun (solar mass), the radius of the event horizon would be just under two miles.

The supermassive black hole is at the center Milky Way On the other hand, the galaxy has a mass of about 4 million solar masses, and has an event horizon with a radius of 7.3 million miles, or 17 solar rays.

So anyone who falls into a star-sized black hole will get much closer to the center of the black hole before passing the event horizon, rather than falling into a supermassive black hole.

This means that, given how close the black hole is to the center of the black hole, the severity of a person’s black hole will vary 1,000 billion times between the head and toes, depending on which one causes the free fall. In other words, if a person fell with their feet first, as they approach the event horizon of a stellar mass black hole, the force of gravity on their feet would be considerably greater than the pull of the black hole on his head.

A person will succumb to spaghetti and probably will not survive the long, thin shape of pasta.

As a person approaches the event horizon of a sun-sized black hole, the large difference in gravity between an individual’s head and toes causes the person to stretch in the form of very long spaghetti, hence the term “spaghetti”. Credit: Liu and Shanshan Rodriguez, CC BY-ND

Now, a person falling into a supermassive black hole would reach the event horizon far from the central source of gravitational pull, which means that the difference in gravity between the head and the toes is almost zero. Therefore, the person would cross the event horizon unaffected, not stretch into a long, thin shape, survive, and float painlessly beyond the horizon of the black hole.

A person who falls into a supermassive black hole is likely to survive. Credit: Liu and Shanshan Rodriguez, CC BY-ND

Other considerations

Most of the black holes we see in the universe are surrounded by extremely hot discs of matter, mostly made up of gas, dust, or other things like stars and planets that have approached the horizon and have fallen. in the black hole. These pills are called accumulation discs and are very hot and turbulent. It is certainly not hospitable and would make a trip to a black hole extremely dangerous.

To access it safely, you must find a supermassive black hole that is completely isolated and does not feed on surrounding matter, gas, or even stars.

Now, if someone detects an isolated supermassive black hole suitable for scientific study and decides to venture with it, anything observed or measured inside the black hole will be limited to the hole’s event horizon. black.

Knowing that nothing can escape gravity beyond the event horizon, a fallen person will not be able to send information about their findings beyond that horizon. Their journey and their discoveries will be lost to the rest of the universe forever. But they will enjoy the adventure as long as they survive … maybe …

Written by Leo Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Physics, Grenell College and Shanshan Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Physics, Grenell College.

Originally published in Al Hiwar.