Yes, It's Possible to Safely Jump Into a Black Hole, Scientists Say
Scientists say humans could indeed enter a black hole to study it.
Of course, the human in question couldn't report their findings—or ever come back.
The reason is that supermassive black holes are much more hospitable.
In a finding ripped from Interstellar, scientists say humans can indeed explore black holes firsthand. The catch? If you're going to jump into a black hole, don't plan on ever jumping back out into our universe.
'A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire Universe,' Grinnell College physicists explain in a new article in The Conversation.
That's because of special physics found in supermassive black holes, resulting in a combination of gravity and event horizon that wouldn't instantaneously pull the human being into a very dead piece of spaghetti.
Because supermassive black holes are much bigger than stellar and intermediate black holes, all the parts of them are more spread out. A person falling in would make it to the event horizon—the border of the black hole beyond which not even light can escape, and where gravity is so strong that light will orbit the black hole like planets orbit stars—a lot sooner than in a smaller black hole.
The person would stay cognizant and intact for longer. But, of course, they would never emerge—making this a one-way rollercoaster ride of scientific discovery into oblivion.
Why does the math work this way? It's a matter of facts about black holes of different sizes, the researchers say:
'For a black hole with a mass of our Sun (one solar mass), the event horizon will have a radius of just under 2 miles. The supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, by contrast, has a mass of roughly 4 million solar masses, and it has an event horizon with a radius of 7.3 million miles or 17 solar radii. This implies, due to the closeness of the black hole's center, that the black hole's pull on a person will differ by a factor of 1,000 billion times between head and toe, depending on which is leading the free fall.'
This means avoiding 'spaghettification' (really!) and a safe, gentle float past the event horizon.
Why does stuff go in but never come out? Well, scientists have only begun to understand the specific instances in which black holes eject energy or information—and that's unlikely to ever take the form of a missive, or even Morse code message, from a disappearing astronaut. Those black holes are very old, for example, with different physics than this special case.
But, like in Interstellar, our imaginations reel at the idea of studying a black hole from the inside. Perhaps in some far future, someone will invent the right kind of tether to pull someone back out. And in that case, we can confirm some of the facts of life in a black hole, time dilation or not.
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the IssueGet the Issue
Get the Issue
You Might Also Like
The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape
The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere
Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
FACT FOCUS: RFK Jr.'s reasons for cutting mRNA vaccine not supported by evidence
Although mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. incorrectly argued they are ineffective to justify the Department of Health and Human Service's recent decision to cancel $500 million in government-funded research projects to develop new vaccines using the technology. The longtime vaccine critic said in an X video posted Tuesday evening that mRNA vaccines do not adequately prevent upper respiratory infections such as COVID-19 and the flu, advocating instead for the development vaccines that use other processes. COVID-19 is the only virus for which real-world data on mRNA vaccine effectiveness is currently available, as mRNA vaccines for other diseases, including the flu, are still under development. The two scientists whose discoveries enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 won a Nobel Prize in 2023 for their work. Kennedy's claim ignores how mRNA vaccines work, according to experts. They prevent against severe infection and death, but cannot completely prevent an infection from occurring in the first place. Plus, years of research supports the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA technology. Here's a closer look at the facts. KENNEDY: 'As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don't perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.' THE FACTS: His claim is contradicted by scientific evidence. Countless studies show that vaccinated individuals fare far better against COVID-19 infections than those who are unvaccinated, while others have estimated that COVID-19 vaccines prevented millions of deaths during the global pandemic. The mRNA vaccines do not prevent respiratory diseases entirely, experts say. Rather, they can prevent more serious illness that leads to complications and death. For example, an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 may prevent an infection in the upper respiratory tract that feels like a bad cold from spreading to the lower respiratory tract, where it could affect one's ability to breathe. 'A vaccine cannot block a respiratory infection,' said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. 'That's never been the standard for a respiratory virus vaccine. And it's never been the expectation, and it's never been that realistic.' He called Kennedy's claim 'misguided.' Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University, had a similar outlook. 'Vaccinations don't have to be neutralizing, meaning that you're not going to get COVID,' he said. 'But the important part of a vaccination is that they reduce hospitalization and death. And a reduction in hospitalization and death is proof of an effective vaccine.' Vaccines have traditionally required growing viruses or pieces of viruses called proteins and then purifying them. Then a small dose of the vaccine is injected to train the body how to recognize when a real infection hits so it's ready to fight back. But this method takes a long time. The mRNA technology speeds up the process and allows existing vaccines to be updated more quickly. The 'm' in mRNA stands for messenger because the vaccine carries instructions for our bodies to make proteins. Scientists figured out how to harness that natural process for vaccines by making mRNA in a lab. They take a snippet of the genetic code that carries instructions for making the protein they want the vaccine to target. Injecting that snippet instructs the body to become its own mini-vaccine factory, making enough copies of the protein for the immune system to recognize and react. Scott explained that mRNA vaccines are not a 'magic force field' that the immune system can use to block an infection, as it can't detect whether a virus is nearby. It can only respond to a virus that has already entered the body. In the case of COVID-19, this means that the virus could cause an upper respiratory tract infection — a cold, essentially — but would be significantly less likely to cause more severe consequences elsewhere. Myriad studies on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have been published since they first became available in late 2020. Although protection does wane over time, they provide the strongest barrier against severe infection and death. For example, a 2024 study by the World Health Organization found COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths in the WHO's European region by at least 57%, saving more than 1.4 million lives since their introduction in December 2020. A 2022 study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases found that nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year. Researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. The main finding — that 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines. Another 2022 study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, reported that two mRNA vaccines were more than 90% effective against COVID-19. Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to facilitate the development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, began under the first Trump administration. 'What I don't understand is why is President Trump is allowing RFK Jr. to undermine his legacy that led to a medical intervention that literally saved millions of lives?' Coller said. 'Why is Trump allowing RFK to undermine U.S. leadership in biomedical research and drug development?' ___ Find AP Fact Checks here: Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
7 minutes ago
- CBS News
Penn doctor calls RFK Jr.'s cuts to mRNA vaccine research bad for science
The scientific community is criticizing Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he announced he's cutting millions from research for the technology that created the COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccine technology, mRNA, was created in Philadelphia. Researchers said it has broad potential to fight many infections and possibly even cancer. But Kennedy disagrees. "mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits," Kennedy said in his announcement on Tuesday. "As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don't perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract," he added. But many in the scientific community dispute that, saying the technology first used to create the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective. "It certainly did decrease mortality associated with COVID. They're also using it for potential treatment of cancer. To no longer fund this research is not a scientific approach," Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the president of the American Medical Association, said. "It's not a step forward in science," he added. mRNA technology works by getting the body to produce a fragment of a virus, which then sets off the body's immune response. Unlike traditional vaccines, which can take years to develop, mRNA is fast. "We can very quickly design new mRNA vaccines to be specifically matched to what's circulating," Dr. Scott Hensley, of the University of Pennsylvania, said in 2024. CBS News Philadelphia spoke with Hensley, an immunologist at Penn, last year when the mRNA was being researched for bird flu. He called Kennedy's decision to cut funding bad for science on Wednesday. "Science is what moves the world forward," Dr. Drew Weissman, a doctor at Penn, said in 2023. Hensley and Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2023 for discovering how to modify mRNA. In announcing the research funding cut for mRNA, Kennedy said the money would go to what he calls better vaccine research. Kennedy said his focus is on a universal vaccine that mimics "natural immunity." Doctors said people need to understand that this cutback will not impact the vaccines that are currently available.
Wall Street Journal
30 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
DuPont Says Tariff Maneuvers Are Paying Off
A boiler inspector wears a Tyvek suit. The protective material is made by DuPont. (Michelle Gustafson for WSJ)
