Black holes remain some of the most mysterious and dangerous cosmic objects, as falling into one will almost certainly not give you the ability to travel in time, as happened in the sci-fi movie “Interstellar” from 2014. Black holes can absorb anything that has the bad luck of getting too close due to gravity, even light.
The gravity of black holes is tremendous. It can absorb and slowly devour planets and even stars if they get too close. The even more terrifying part is that there are not just a few black holes out there. There are probably as many as stars are! It’s a somewhat balance of nature – as bright and powerful as stars are, that’s how scary and destructive black holes can be.
NASA’s new video sheds light
NASA is the space agency that’s constantly preoccupied with the study of black holes. Unfortunately or not, it’s still not possible for astronomers to observe one such cosmic object directly with telescopes since it doesn’t emit any light. But even so, scientists were able to figure out that black holes are no myth through math calculations and observing how other cosmic objects move around a certain point in space.
Let’s take a good look at NASA’s new video that presents what it’s like to fall into a black hole, shall we? It might actually save lives!
Jeremy Schnittman from NASA, the astrophysicist responsible for creating the new visualizations, explained in a statement from the famous space agency:
People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,
So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.
What do you think about NASA’s new video? Feel free to share your opinion with us!