Into Other Dimensions: Orbits and Black Holes
Jaime Cross
Hey! thanks for returning to my blog! I am back at it this time with something a little more complicated, so settle in and let me explain what it would be like to orbit the infamous black hole. If you have any questions just comment down below and I will try to answer to the best of my ability. I am in the midst of learning the field of Astrodynamics so bear with me. Also sorry for the lack of posts due to the fact that I was in India, so in turn, I have written about two topics.
A black hole has been the most feared object in space since its discovery back in the year 1971. It is a common misconception that the black hole is a hole. It is a compact sphere that collects matter using its powerful gravitational field. The gravity of the black hole can be calculated finding the mass of the black hole its self. The bigger the mass the more gravity it will have and the faster the celestial bodies move around the spherical body. Such calculations could be done using Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Newton's laws of motion, and Einsteins theory of relativity.
Yet first, there are six types of gravitational encounters in a vacuum. One being a suborbital trajectory; this is when the orbiting body emerges from the greater gravitational mass and spikes at either a parabolic trajectory or at the tip of its atmosphere then plunges back down to the greater mass. An example of this is the early Mercury Missions when NASA sent two astronauts (Allen Shepard and Gus Grissom) to the top of the atmosphere than back down. To be classified as such a flight the spacecraft would need to reach at least an elevation of 100 km in the air. This is where the vehicle doesn't have enough aerodynamic lift or momentum to keep in the air. This height is marked by the Karman line.
The second orbital trajectory is a parabolic orbit. This simple trajectory is mostly classified as a suborbital flight. If you have ever done parabolas in Geometry it carries the same shape as the ones you use. It can be calculated the same way as well. These can range from steep inclines to shallow, just as long as it doesn't go around the greater mass or else it would be deemed an elliptical orbit.
The third is an elliptical orbit. These orbital paths are an oval-shaped circle that goes around the greater gravitational mass. They tend to have varying speeds during the orbit. It speeds up on the longer part of the orbit due to the force of gravity pulling it toward the mass yet the object misses it. It then slows down to nearly a stop to change direction back toward the gravitational mass. These orbits tend to be "weak" because just one little push and you will have an escape trajectory. If you cut this orbit in half you will get a parabolic orbit.
I could go on for quite a long time about how many orbits there are, yet most are just self-explanatory. Now for the cool part, black holes have made their way into pop-culture through movies and video games alike. The best example being in one of Christopher Nolan's films called Interstellar. In this movie, a black hole plays a big part, mostly by posing a threat to the crew. One of the main factors that drive the characters in this movie is a loss of time. Time is a key factor to get back to earth on time before human extinction. The movies the main conflict is based on a theory comprised by Albert Einstein called the Theory of Relativity. This is a bold theory that states loosely that gravity distorts time. So for example, if you orbit a black hole in any previously mentioned or unmentioned ways, time moves slower compared to the universe unaffected by the black hole's gravity. This all depends if the black hole has a big enough gravitational field to affect you in such ways.
For example, in the movie, an away team goes down on a planet close to the black hole, yet they leave a person up in the main ship to do research. They spend a couple hours down on the planet and yet time moved faster for the man back in the ship. they came back and twenty-seven years have passed since they had left. Since we can ever reach a black hole in our lifetime we cannot prove this theory. There is also another version of the theory where time is different if you are moving at a faster speed, yet that concept is for another time.
Now for the cool part. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to enter a black hole? If you have, what do you think would happen? Leave what you think in the comments below. Scientists speculate that either one of two things will happen. Either you enter into another dimension or you get vaporized through the process of spaghettification.
Carl Sagan whenever explaining dimensions brings up something called flat land. When he talks about the flat land he is referring to the second dimension. Then he goes on to say that a creature swoops by and takes a flat creature up above flat land into a third dimension. I will leave a link below to the video. Now think of Earth being flat land and we all live in harmony until a creature lifts you into "the world above". That is essentially what the black hole is supposed to do in this theory, more or less a portal to another dimension. When you enter you will seamlessly enter something called the tesseract, which is BASICALLY the fourth dimension. No one truly knows what would go on in the fourth dimension physically considering that we move in a 3D plane already. I among many believe it will have to do something with time. In the movie Interstellar, the main character enters the black hole and enters the tesseract. He finds himself in the fourth dimension "portal". This "portal" allows him to interact with his daughter using Quantum reactions (which basically means he can talk to his daughter through interacting with the environment around her). Again this is a highly unlikely thing to happen, yet still a cool thought. (link to Carl Sagan's Flat Land video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WjV6MmCyM) (link to the tesseract scene form Interstellar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJio07EtKYc)
Next is the more plausible answer for what will happen inside a black hole. This is a process called spaghettification. This is when you start experiencing gravity at different rates as you fall past the Event Horizon. The Event Horizon essentially "the point of no return". Everyone knows the phrase "not even light can escape it," that being only after it passes the event horizon. Some people say that you could see everything around you in a 360-degree fashion when you pass the horizon. This being that gravity bends light. Like in this picture from the movie Interstellar, the gravity from the black hole is bending the light waves to "orbit" the sphere. And to address the topic of how the light stretches over and around the black hole, this is an effect called Gravitational lensing. This is something that the black hole is capable of doing, the light on the top and bottom are actually the light that is "orbiting" on the opposite side of the black hole. Yet, due to the effect of Gravitational Lensing, its gravity is so strong that it warps the light around the black hole creating this cool looking formation in the void.
Back on topic, the event is fast and painless. What basically happens is, as your body progresses further into the black hole you start to be affected by its gravity at different rates. For example, your toe would start falling faster than your foot, then your foot starts to fall faster than your leg etc. My math teacher and I in California had a thought experiment questioning if you would feel the pain of this event happening. We came to the conclusion depending on how fast you are falling. No. Due to the fact that you are falling, for example at Mach 20 in a vacuum, your pain receptors would not have transferred the signal to the brain in time. So basically it happens at a small level so bit by bit at a molecular level being torn apart. Yet for the sake of the argument if you were torn apart in chunks those curtain chunks would fall into the same circumstances that happened to it in the first place.
Overall black holes are REALLY cool and will come up often in this blog over time. Leave your comments and questions down below and I will try to respond to the best of my ability. If you have any suggestions of what I should do next just tell me. Thank you for returning to The All Encompassing Space Blog!
Hey! thanks for returning to my blog! I am back at it this time with something a little more complicated, so settle in and let me explain what it would be like to orbit the infamous black hole. If you have any questions just comment down below and I will try to answer to the best of my ability. I am in the midst of learning the field of Astrodynamics so bear with me. Also sorry for the lack of posts due to the fact that I was in India, so in turn, I have written about two topics.
A black hole has been the most feared object in space since its discovery back in the year 1971. It is a common misconception that the black hole is a hole. It is a compact sphere that collects matter using its powerful gravitational field. The gravity of the black hole can be calculated finding the mass of the black hole its self. The bigger the mass the more gravity it will have and the faster the celestial bodies move around the spherical body. Such calculations could be done using Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Newton's laws of motion, and Einsteins theory of relativity.
Yet first, there are six types of gravitational encounters in a vacuum. One being a suborbital trajectory; this is when the orbiting body emerges from the greater gravitational mass and spikes at either a parabolic trajectory or at the tip of its atmosphere then plunges back down to the greater mass. An example of this is the early Mercury Missions when NASA sent two astronauts (Allen Shepard and Gus Grissom) to the top of the atmosphere than back down. To be classified as such a flight the spacecraft would need to reach at least an elevation of 100 km in the air. This is where the vehicle doesn't have enough aerodynamic lift or momentum to keep in the air. This height is marked by the Karman line.
The second orbital trajectory is a parabolic orbit. This simple trajectory is mostly classified as a suborbital flight. If you have ever done parabolas in Geometry it carries the same shape as the ones you use. It can be calculated the same way as well. These can range from steep inclines to shallow, just as long as it doesn't go around the greater mass or else it would be deemed an elliptical orbit.
The third is an elliptical orbit. These orbital paths are an oval-shaped circle that goes around the greater gravitational mass. They tend to have varying speeds during the orbit. It speeds up on the longer part of the orbit due to the force of gravity pulling it toward the mass yet the object misses it. It then slows down to nearly a stop to change direction back toward the gravitational mass. These orbits tend to be "weak" because just one little push and you will have an escape trajectory. If you cut this orbit in half you will get a parabolic orbit.
I could go on for quite a long time about how many orbits there are, yet most are just self-explanatory. Now for the cool part, black holes have made their way into pop-culture through movies and video games alike. The best example being in one of Christopher Nolan's films called Interstellar. In this movie, a black hole plays a big part, mostly by posing a threat to the crew. One of the main factors that drive the characters in this movie is a loss of time. Time is a key factor to get back to earth on time before human extinction. The movies the main conflict is based on a theory comprised by Albert Einstein called the Theory of Relativity. This is a bold theory that states loosely that gravity distorts time. So for example, if you orbit a black hole in any previously mentioned or unmentioned ways, time moves slower compared to the universe unaffected by the black hole's gravity. This all depends if the black hole has a big enough gravitational field to affect you in such ways.
For example, in the movie, an away team goes down on a planet close to the black hole, yet they leave a person up in the main ship to do research. They spend a couple hours down on the planet and yet time moved faster for the man back in the ship. they came back and twenty-seven years have passed since they had left. Since we can ever reach a black hole in our lifetime we cannot prove this theory. There is also another version of the theory where time is different if you are moving at a faster speed, yet that concept is for another time.
Now for the cool part. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to enter a black hole? If you have, what do you think would happen? Leave what you think in the comments below. Scientists speculate that either one of two things will happen. Either you enter into another dimension or you get vaporized through the process of spaghettification.
Carl Sagan whenever explaining dimensions brings up something called flat land. When he talks about the flat land he is referring to the second dimension. Then he goes on to say that a creature swoops by and takes a flat creature up above flat land into a third dimension. I will leave a link below to the video. Now think of Earth being flat land and we all live in harmony until a creature lifts you into "the world above". That is essentially what the black hole is supposed to do in this theory, more or less a portal to another dimension. When you enter you will seamlessly enter something called the tesseract, which is BASICALLY the fourth dimension. No one truly knows what would go on in the fourth dimension physically considering that we move in a 3D plane already. I among many believe it will have to do something with time. In the movie Interstellar, the main character enters the black hole and enters the tesseract. He finds himself in the fourth dimension "portal". This "portal" allows him to interact with his daughter using Quantum reactions (which basically means he can talk to his daughter through interacting with the environment around her). Again this is a highly unlikely thing to happen, yet still a cool thought. (link to Carl Sagan's Flat Land video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WjV6MmCyM) (link to the tesseract scene form Interstellar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJio07EtKYc)
Next is the more plausible answer for what will happen inside a black hole. This is a process called spaghettification. This is when you start experiencing gravity at different rates as you fall past the Event Horizon. The Event Horizon essentially "the point of no return". Everyone knows the phrase "not even light can escape it," that being only after it passes the event horizon. Some people say that you could see everything around you in a 360-degree fashion when you pass the horizon. This being that gravity bends light. Like in this picture from the movie Interstellar, the gravity from the black hole is bending the light waves to "orbit" the sphere. And to address the topic of how the light stretches over and around the black hole, this is an effect called Gravitational lensing. This is something that the black hole is capable of doing, the light on the top and bottom are actually the light that is "orbiting" on the opposite side of the black hole. Yet, due to the effect of Gravitational Lensing, its gravity is so strong that it warps the light around the black hole creating this cool looking formation in the void.
Back on topic, the event is fast and painless. What basically happens is, as your body progresses further into the black hole you start to be affected by its gravity at different rates. For example, your toe would start falling faster than your foot, then your foot starts to fall faster than your leg etc. My math teacher and I in California had a thought experiment questioning if you would feel the pain of this event happening. We came to the conclusion depending on how fast you are falling. No. Due to the fact that you are falling, for example at Mach 20 in a vacuum, your pain receptors would not have transferred the signal to the brain in time. So basically it happens at a small level so bit by bit at a molecular level being torn apart. Yet for the sake of the argument if you were torn apart in chunks those curtain chunks would fall into the same circumstances that happened to it in the first place.
Overall black holes are REALLY cool and will come up often in this blog over time. Leave your comments and questions down below and I will try to respond to the best of my ability. If you have any suggestions of what I should do next just tell me. Thank you for returning to The All Encompassing Space Blog!
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