These don’t really pose any threat to us, until our galaxy collides with another like the Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years. The first are supermassive black holes found churning at the centre of galaxies. There are two predominant types of black hole in the universe. In fact the odds of a black hole devouring our planet are estimated at one in a trillion.
How likely is it that a black hole could enter the Solar System? Well, you’d have to define likely it is more likely that the Earth will get swallowed by a black hole than, say, winning the lottery ten times in a row, but less likely than being struck by lightning. In fact, the larger the black hole, the weaker the tidal forces near its event horizon.An incoming black hole would be invisible until it sucked material from the planets to give it a glowing accretion disk. So you could cross this threshold and survive without experiencing any pulling. but for a supermassive black hole, the tidal forces aren't very large at all because you cross the event horizon well before you reach the singularity. This is because the event horizon is smaller, so you are closer to the singularity (the center of a black hole). For a solar mass black hole, the tidal forces near the event horizon can be quite large, so they will kill you before you cross the event horizon. Unfortunately, this goes along with those who suspect black holes are actually some sort of portal. The sky would simply appear more and more black until you reach the event horizon.Īs a side point, 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. 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. You wouldn't survive falling toward a black hole.īut hypothetically, if you could survive crossing the event horizon (the boundary beyond which not even light can escape) of a black hole, what would you see then? Contrary to popular belief, you would not see the entire future of the universe flash before you. 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 body would be different. But, as we've agreed, you're ignoring my advice and flying fast 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. You've just purchased yourself a spacecraft, strapped on your favorite sonic sword, and now you're going to ride head first into the nearest black hole.
Let's say you decided to ignore some of my previous advice.