Black holes are certainly intriguing. Who doesn’t want to be surprised by these cosmic bodies that don’t even let light escape? The ranks of scientists from Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking have studied black holes, but they remain completely unknown. Scientists continue to study black holes. Many wondered if astronauts could enter a black hole. It looks like he can do it now, but it will be the most lonely journey ever made.
Leo and Shanshan Rodriquez, assistant professors of physics at Grinnell College, compared two types of black holes: stellar size and supermassive black holes.
A stellar-sized black hole is approximately the size of the Sun, but a supermassive black hole weighs 4 million Suns.
Both of these black holes have an event horizon. It’s a border, a point with no return. When someone crosses the event horizon, the massive attraction of the black hole takes over.
The event horizon is only a few kilometres long and close to the centre of the black hole, so trying to enter a stellar-sized black hole is not a good idea. When an astronaut enters such a black hole, a phenomenon called spaghettification (the process by which an object would be stretched and ripped apart by gravitational forces on falling into a black hole.) occurs. All atoms in his body are torn apart.
Compare this to a supermassive black hole like the one in the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. Such black holes have the event horizon of millions of kilometres.
The gravitational pull of this part in the case of a supermassive black hole is not as extreme as in the case of a stellar-sized black hole. Researchers have stated that in order for astronauts to “safely” enter a black hole, it must be isolated from the surrounding space.
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