NASA has released new simulations showing what would happen if a person fell into a black hole. The simulations use a virtual supermassive black hole with a mass 4.3 million times that of our sun, similar to the black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.
One simulation shows approaching the black hole from 400 million miles away and rapidly falling toward the event horizon, the point of no return. Structures like photon rings and the accretion disk surrounding the black hole are visible. The viewer crosses the event horizon and is spaghettified as space-time warps.
An alternate simulation shows narrowly escaping the black hole after orbiting close to the event horizon. The explorer would return 36 minutes younger than those who remained far away, illustrating the time dilation effects near a black hole.
NASA astrophysicist Jeremy Schnittman produced the visualizations using the Discover supercomputer. They provide a more personal perspective on what it might be like to encounter a black hole compared to depictions in movies and help erase some of the mystery around these powerful cosmic objects.
Source: USA Today
