People can’t stop watching ‘mesmerizing’ simulation of what it would be like plunging into black hole
What would it be like to fall into a black hole?
It's something none of us would be keen to discover IRL - mainly because your body would immediately spaghettify, stretching out like noodles, which doesn't sound particularly pleasant.
But you could be forgiven for still being a little curious. Luckily, NASA has come up with the goods, and released a simulation of what it might be like to plunge into a black hole.
The first part of the YouTube video is pretty mesmerizing - you get closer to glowing rings of light, entering through a black circle, with these strips of bright light increasingly twisting and bending around you.
It's undoubtedly cool - kind of like a two-tone kaleidoscope - but until NASA explain what's actually going on, it's difficult to decipher.
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Things get even more fascinating when the video then dives into what's happening at every point of the process.
NASA first explains that it's a 'simulation of a flight into a supermassive black hole, surrounded by a hot glowing disc of gas'. The thin inner circle is the photon ring, which is made up of light rays that orbit around the black hole.
Then, the camera in the simulation plunges into the event horizon - which is essentially the boundary at the outer edge of a black hole, a slightly terrifying place where nothing can escape.
According to NASA, when the camera hits the event horizon, 'light from the outside universe still shines in, but can never leave'. Then the camera is destroyed and reaches singularity - the center of the black hole, where things are almost impossibly dense.
It's pretty amazing stuff - and was no mean feat to put together. This isn't something you can whip up on your computer on a rainy day - using a normal laptop, it would actually take over a decade to process.
Instead, this was made on the Discover supercomputer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This impressive bit of kit did it in five days, apparently using only 0.3% of its processing power - which is a bit of a flex, if you ask us.
And people are suitably awe-struck by the video, expressing their amazement in the comments section.
"OK, I am going to watch this about 20 times. Then spend I don’t know how many years trying to really understand it. What I am amazed by is how there are people out there who really do understand it and who can build these super computers to do these simulations," one YouTuber wrote.
Another added: "What an extraordinary universe we live in. Beautiful, wonderful, awesome."
While a third chimed in: "This made my brain tickle. Thank you."