Scientists from NASA have created a fascinating visualization that demonstrates the effects of approaching the event horizon of a supermassive black hole – a point from which there is no return. The visualization was developed on the Discover supercomputer in the NASA Climate Simulation Center and was led by scientists Jeremy Shnittman and Brian Powell. The camera in the visualization begins its journey towards a black hole with a mass 4.3 million times greater than the sun from a distance of nearly 640 million km.
As the camera gets closer to the black hole, it quickly fills the entire field of view, distorting the disc of the black hole, photon rings, and the starry sky, creating multiple images. In real time, the camera reaches the event horizon in three hours, completing almost two full orbits in 30 minutes each. Despite this, for an observer, it appears that the camera is frozen at the horizon due to time dilatation.
The space-time at the event horizon is so curved that everything, including space itself, moves inward at the speed of light. Once the camera crosses the horizon, it rapidly approaches the singularity at the center of the black hole, where the laws of physics break down. Dr. Shnittman explains that only 12.8 seconds remain from the moment the horizon is crossed until the camera is spaghettified and completely destroyed.
In an alternative scenario, if the camera approaches but does not cross the event horizon, it can return to safety. In this case, if an astronaut embarked on a six-hour journey towards the black hole, they would return 36 minutes younger than their colleagues who remained on the ship due to the effects of gravity and time dilation.
Dr. Shnittman emphasized that if the black hole is rotating rapidly, as depicted in the film “Interstellar,” the astronaut could return many years younger than their companions. These findings shed light on the fascinating and complex nature of black holes and the effects of gravity on space and time.