Splashee

Hey Splashee, it's time.

I've had these pictures for a while now for you, and there's a lot to say about them. So let's get started!

Introducing... the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy! And I know what you're thinking. "Wow. For a black hole it's surprisingly bright!" Well, there's a reason for that. A black hole is black only at the event horizon and the singularity. Everything else is very bright!

We are now 100 AU from this black hole. Keep in mind this distance puts us at about the median sun-earth distance between Voyager 1 and Pioneer 11. At least, if my math is correct.

We are also in no danger of falling into this particular black hole from this distance. This is because black holes do not "suck." Matter simply gets too close and falls in.

We can now see the accretion disc and the jets shooting out from the black hole itself. The accretion disc is the normal path that matter takes to the event horizon. It heats up and is bombarded with other radiation here before falling in. We are just 7 AU away now, and we are still in no danger of falling into the black hole for some reason. To begin really feeling the effects of a black hole, if I'm not mistaken, you have to come within 3 times the diameter of the event horizon, or the Schwarzschild Radius.  This particular event horizon has a diameter of almost 599,000 km, which tells me it's either still forming or there was an error in coding this black hole. I think it's supposed to be way larger, especially given its mass. It's too massive to have been made by one star. 

We are now sitting on the accretion disc, and it's being very kind in allowing us to do so without killing us! We're at the edge, and now are well within the gravitational influence of this black hole. At this distance, if we exert enough energy, we can still escape.

Do you remember what I told you about space-time? Gravity bends it. The more it bends, the more paths lead towards the object that's flexing on it. From this distance, we have plenty of paths in various different directions, but there is some fabric being curved towards the black hole. These are the paths that we're following.

In the center of this light, you can see darkness. That, my friend, is the event horizon. Gravity is so extreme here that the light from around the black hole is bent. So those bendy looking stars closer to the horizon are actually stars that are behind the black hole! You can see behind it while staring at its front.  At this distance, more paths are leading towards our certain doom. However, with a supermassive black hole, you could actually probably survive well within the event horizon. This is because the event horizon itself is not what kills you. It's the tidal forces exerted by the singularity. So, what is a singularity?

A singularity is impossible to accurately define using words, layman or otherwise. You might be tempted to say it's the point in the middle where gravity and spacetime curvature becomes infinite, but this is not 100% true. To call it a "point" suggests it has a size.

A singularity is not little, it's not small, it's not teensy-weensy. It has no size. It's infinitely small and its gravitational pull is also infinite. 

At just 1.7 million kilometers from the black hole, we see the event horizon in much more dramatic form. You can see the dramatic curvature of light. This also means that even more paths are heading towards the singularity, and even fewer are heading away. To escape here, you must travel at the speed of light and get lucky. Fortunately, the odds of you escaping would still be okay! Black holes like to throw things a lot more than they like to consume them.

As we look up just before we fall in, we see that all available light has been given a blueish hue. This is because almost all the light in this particular area is heading towards the singularity. When radiation like light is heading towards something, it tends to gain a shorter wavelength and turns blueish. This is called blue shifting. On the contrary, if I were to look at you from a safe distance, you would appear red tinted because most of the light reflecting off you is also heading towards the event horizon. This is called red shifting.

We are now within the point of no return. We can see the separation of the universe from the void here. From now on, every path we can possibly take will now lead only towards the singularity. No matter which direction you face, you're going to be facing the singularity. The laws of physics as we know them cease to exist, and Einstein's theories take over. This is because space-time has become so warped, space has become time and time has become space. 

Under normal circumstances you travel actively through space (whenever you walk, drive, run, etc) and passively pass through time. With the roles flipped, however, you're now actively passing through time and passively passing through space. This means that, if I took you to this black hole in a space ship and you turned and looked at me orbiting at a safe distance to give me the finger, you would see me instantly grow old, elderly, then die, become a skeleton, and then turn to dust. You would see my entire life flash before you much like you would see the end of every other object in the universe.

You would begin to feel the effects of the tidal forces of the singularity here. In other words, the gravitational pull on your feet is so much more potent than the gravitational pull at your head, that you would begin to be stretched out. This process is known as spaghettification. So, I'm 5' 6". If I want to be taller, all I have to do is fall into a black hole! Easy.

As we fall in further and look up, we now see the entire universe crumbled into a sphere.  Splashee, you're bearing witness to the end of the universe. Unfortunately, we still can not see the singularity, where space and time are infinitely curved and the universe as we know it comes to an end. And we never will.

As we look up one final time, this is all that is left of our universe. Regardless of the size of the black hole or how you fall in, the journey ends roughly a fraction of a second before you cross the singularity. The gravity has become so intense that you are ripped apart down to your atoms, and your mass is then added to the total of the black hole. In other words, you become part of the black hole!

Nothing lasts forever though, especially not a black hole. Over many, many eons, you've come to terms with what happened to you and you're living your best life and being the best black hole you can be! You're trying to throw away as much matter as you can so as not to give it the same fate as your own. Sometimes you might merge with other black holes. But eventually, you notice less and less matter is falling towards you... Why is that?

This is because the heat death of the universe is approaching. Less radiation falling towards you means less mass is being added. Black holes do release some strange types of energy over time. The more energy is falling towards you, however, offsets this loss. But as time passes and the matter falling towards you trails off, more radiation is gradually released. After an obscenely long lifetime (somewhere on the level of one googol years or more, which is 1x10^100 years), you evaporate.

All in all, it doesn't sound like a very fun thing to do, so do me a favor Splashee and don't ever fall into a black hole!

This was a weird journey, but also very interesting to me at least. I hope you enjoyed as well. Keep looking up, and let me know what you want to see next!