What would happen if a human fell into a black hole? A question that seems like something out of a science fiction film, but which received a detailed answer from the physicist Brian Cox. Depending on the mass of the black hole, the outcomes are different, but there is no escape.
According to Brian Cox, small black holes – those with a mass a few times that of the Sun – are the most dangerous. Their gravitational force is so intense that it immediately destroys anything that comes close to their event horizon. Even before crossing this invisible threshold, tidal forces would activate the phenomenon of “spaghettification“. This process, explained in Einstein’s general theory of relativityindicates the dramatic elongation of the body caused by the difference in gravity between the head and the feet. The result? A painful and inescapable fate.
For larger black holes, such as the one at the center of our galaxy or the M87 galaxy, the situation changes. When a person crosses the event horizon of a supermassive black holethe transition is surprisingly silent. At first, you would not perceive anything abnormal. However, inside the black hole, fate would be sealed: after about 30 hours, we would approach the singularity, where the laws of physics as we know them cease to exist.
The effect of time inside a black hole
Time itself behaves strangely near a black hole. To an outside observer, time would appear to slow down as you approach the event horizon, almost to a stop. But for those inside the black hole, time would flow normally, speeding up as one approaches the singularity.
The singularity is the heart of every black hole, an infinitely dense and small region. This is where everything that enters the black hole, including light and matter, is inevitably destroyed. Even physical information – that is, the properties of what was swallowed – is obliterated or perhaps transported into parallel dimensions, according to some theories.
Black holes are not only a topic of scientific research, but also an inexhaustible source of cultural inspiration. Movies like Interstellar they tried to imagine what it would be like to go through a black hole, based on Einstein’s theories of relativity. However, no human being will ever be able to verify these concepts, since entering a black hole means being irremediably cut off from the rest of the universe.
NASA also made a video a few months ago that simulates what happens inside a black hole:
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