• Question: what happens to things when a black hole approaches to them?

    Asked by paris305 to Adam, Alexander, Aron, Jess, Neil on 13 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Jessica Marshall

      Jessica Marshall answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      A black hole has such a strong gravity that nothing, even light can escape. It is a bit like a pug-hole, as things get nearer they start to spiral round it, going faster and faster. As they get closer, they begin to break apart until they reach a point of no return and are then sucked into the hole. There are also lots of crazy things that happen to the laws of physics that we see here on Earth with time and so for mathematicians it is a really interesting phenomenon to think about.

    • Photo: Alexander Finch

      Alexander Finch answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      They get pulled into the black hole! Lots of weird things happen – time slows down and the object gets “stretched”. There’s even a name for this: spaghettification – because things near a black hole will be stretched out into long, spaghetti-like shapes!

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