From outside a black hole, all the infalling matter will emit light and always is visible, while nothing from behind the event horizon can get out. But if you were the one who fell into a black hole, what you’d see would be interesting and counterintuitive, and we know what it would actually look like. (ANDREW HAMILTON, JILA, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO)

Ask Ethan: What’s It Like When You Fall Into A Black Hole?

It’s the ultimate way to go… and yet, it still isn’t what you’d expect.

There are many terrifying ways that the Universe can destroy something. In space, if you tried to hold your breath, your lungs would explode; if you exhaled every molecule of air instead, you’d black out within seconds. In some locations, you’d freeze solid as the heat was sucked out of your body; in others it’s so hot that your atoms would turn into a plasma. But of all the ways the Universe has to dispose of someone, I can think of none more fascinating than to send someone inside a black hole. So does Event Horizon Telescope scientist Heino Falcke, who asks:

[W]hat is it like to be/fall inside a rotating black hole? This is not observable, but calculable… I have talked with various people who have done these calculations, but I am getting old and keep forgetting things.

It’s a tremendously interesting question, and one that science can answer. Let’s find out.

An illustration of heavily curved spacetime, outside the event horizon of a black hole. As you get closer and closer to the mass’s location, space becomes more severely curved, eventually leading to a location from within which even light cannot escape: the event horizon. The radius of that location is set by the mass of the black hole, the speed of light, and the laws of General Relativity alone. In theory, there should be a special point, a singularity, where all the mass is concentrated for stationary, spherically-symmetric black holes. (PIXABAY USER JOHNSONMARTIN)

According to our theory of gravity, Einstein’s General Relativity, there are only three things that determine the properties…