• Question: what happens after you get stretched in a black hole

    Asked by anon-226718 to William, Thibaut "Tibo", Harry, Georgia, Emily, Aimee on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Aimee Egglestone

      Aimee Egglestone answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      I’m not totally sure, because it’s really not my field, but if I remember correctly from a Brian Cox lecture I watched once: when light gets close to a blackhole it stretches and distorts, as does time. So as you get close whichever body part is closer to the blackhole will age at a different rate than the rest of you. Although functionally I don’t think the human body could survive the gravity, not much could.

    • Photo: Georgia Orton

      Georgia Orton answered on 12 Nov 2019: last edited 12 Nov 2019 7:42 pm

      As you approach the black hole your body would be stretched to look like a noodle. This is spaghettification (yep, technical term). I think that classical physics says that the centre of a black hole there is a singularity (a point) with an enormous mass. Classical physics doesn’t work in those extreme conditions so it’s hard to really know what is happening, and noone really knows what happens after you get sucked in.

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