A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that it has been said nothing can escape. However, scientists were stunned earlier this week when a star was seen hurtling out of a black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, leading them to question everything they thought they knew. Despite this, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has a damning prospect for life on Earth, should a black hole ever approach the Blue Planet.
In 2007, he released “Death By Black Hole” where he theorised the gory details of human prospects in the scenario.
A year later, he appeared at a public lecture with Ryan Watt in San Francisco, where he explained his research to a theatre of viewers.
He said: “The gravity of the black hole is extreme, light doesn’t even escape.
“The escape velocity is so high, the speed of light is not good enough, so if light doesn’t come out, nothing is coming out.
“You fall in, you’re not coming out – it’s a one-way trip.
“If you die this way, you won’t get to tell anyone how you died.”
Dr Tyson explained how the gravity of a black hole is not that much different from that on Earth, except you are constantly being pulled in.
He added: “As you fall in, you don’t just die because you disappear.
“You die long before you disappear, as you fall in the gravity at your feet is greater than the gravity at your head.
“In a black hole, you’re so small, so compact, your height matters as you fall in.
“Your feet start falling in before your head does and it’s a bad situation to be in.
“Initially it feels like a stretch, it’s cosmic yoga, but then the stretch continues beyond the comfort level.”
Dr Tyson then delivered a gory admission over the final moments before the black hole completely overcomes you.
He continued: “You would reach a point where – and they’re called tidal forces – get so great that they exceed the intermolecular forces that bund your flesh.
“And so the point comes where you snap into two pieces – likely to happen at the base of your spine.
“It turns out you will survive that snap because below your waist, while there are important organs, there are no vital organs.
“So your torso stays alive for much longer, but the other pieces snap into two, then again into eight and then 16.
“Eventually it’s your head and multiple other parts, and that will continue until you are a stream of atoms descending towards the abyss.”