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Friday April 3, 2009
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Ever wonder what it would look like to get sucked into a black hole in space? Me neither, but scientists have developed a computer simulation that shows what you would see if you were drifting toward a brain-crushing singularity, according to New Scientist.
Two scientists at the University of Colorado in Boulder wrote code based on the equations of Einstein's general theory of
relativity, which describes gravity as a distortion of space and time, the article said. "They follow the fate of an imaginary observer on an orbit that swoops
down into a giant black hole weighing five million times the mass of the
sun, about the same size as the hole in the center of our own galaxy."
The report said that the research could eventually help physicists understand what happens to matter and energy in a black hole. For the rest of us, it's pretty cool to watch. Follow the link to see a short (45-second) video of the sequence, as light from other stars near the hole is swallowed up by the event horizon (the point at which nothing can escape the black hole).
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April 3, 2009 4:18 PM
That is AWESOME.
I love how the clock accurately slowed down as you got closer, too. Absolutely perfect.
April 7, 2009 3:49 PM
Wow, that was a lot of work. Especially the part where they had to sort through and reconvert the Hawking radiation back into the video camera that they initially launched into the black hole.