In Christopher Nolan’s epic 2014 science fiction movie Interstellar, a rogue splinter team of scientists constituting the collapsed remnants of NASA hatch a plan to save the planet from environmental collapse by seeking potentially habitable planets in a distant galaxy. They get there by traveling through a wormhole and using the gravitational slingshot velocity of a massive black hole.
While it has been a recurring theme in science fiction for several decades, a black hole itself has never been considered a feasible form of space travel as scientists have always believed the mysterious tidal forces inside the event horizon would spaghettify and crush anything which dared to enter it.
However, scientists now say new simulation models are suggesting that a rotating black hole, which contains a unique “mass inflation singularity,” might offer safe passage to another part of the galaxy—or another galaxy altogether.
The group of physicists from UMass Dartmouth and Georgia Gwinnett College says their simulations show the singularity at the center of a huge rotating black hole could facilitate a “gentle” passage through rips in spacetime.
Physicist Gaurav Khanna, his colleague Lior Burko, and his student Caroline Mallary were inspired by Interstellar to test whether its central character named Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, could’ve theoretically survived a descent into the movie’s fictional black hole, Gargantua.
Mallary built a computer simulation exploring the physics involved and concluded:
“The effects of the singularity in the context of a rotating black hole would result in rapidly increasing cycles of stretching and squeezing on the spacecraft. But for massive black holes like Gargantua, the strength of this effect would be really small. Therefore, the spacecraft and any individuals on board would not detect it.”
In recent years, scientific speculation concerning exotic properties of black holes has increased. A 2016 study examined the possibility of five-dimensional black holes shaped like rings that violate the laws of physics, including Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Another paper stated that black holes deposit matter into the far future.
Realistically, we’ll likely not know anything substantial about the logistics of traveling the stars via black holes within our lifetime. Humans are still trying to travel to the nearest planet in our solar system and the giant black hole, Sagittarius A*—that lurks 27,000 light years away at the center of the Milky Way—isn’t even remotely reachable without propulsion technologies that are decades, if not centuries, from implementation.
Nevertheless, within our lifetime we might learn more about how quantum gravity works inside of black holes—buoyed by new advanced telescopes and research methods—that might tell us if it is physically possible for hyperspace travel using black holes. And although we can not do it, maybe others in the universe can.
Reference: The Mind Unleashed
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