PREVIEW

Scientists have released a mind-bending simulation of what it would look like to fall into a black hole.

Using a NASA supercomputer, the new video allows viewers to experience the descent into the event horizon, the point from which nothing can escape a black hole.

The simulation follows a camera as it nears, orbits, and finally enters the event horizon of a colossal black hole akin to the one at our galaxy's center.

Jeremy Schnittman, NASA astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, created the visualisations.

He says, "This is a common curiosity, and creating simulations of these hard-to-picture events helps bridge the gap between the abstract math of relativity and its tangible effects in the universe."

"Therefore, I created two scenarios: one where a camera - acting as a proxy for an adventurous astronaut - narrowly escapes the event horizon and catapults back, and another where it crosses into the horizon, marking its doom."

For the project, Schnittman collaborated with fellow Goddard scientist Brian Powell, using the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation.

The effort produced about 10 terabytes of data, roughly equivalent to half the estimated text content in the Library of Congress, and ran for about 5 days using just 0.3% of Discover’s 129,000 processors.

Attempting this on a standard laptop would take over a decade.

The target is a supermassive black hole, with a mass 4.3 million times that of our Sun, mirroring the behemoth at the center of the Milky Way.

Schnittman says, “If given the choice, opt for a supermassive black hole.”

He explains, “Black holes of stellar mass, which have up to about 30 solar masses, feature much smaller event horizons and more intense tidal forces that could tear apart objects before they even reach the horizon.”