• Question: If part of an object crossed an event horizon, would the whole object be forced to enter the black hole?

    Asked by lwebb to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by scazza226.
    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Good question, thanks!
      Generally, if the object is held together even weakly then the force pulling one side in will just pull the whole object in. Unless you had something really strong holding back the other side…
      I’m not sure if you know what would happen if a person fell into a black hole? The technical term of it is “spaghettification” – yes, that’s the real word for it!
      You can imagine what happens, but the force of the person’s feet is stronger than on their head, so they get stretched out into a piece of spaghetti. Before I knew that I thought it would be interesting to fall into a black hole, but I suspect it would just be a short burst of intense pain followed by death! Ouch!

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      I imagine so yes. I think that the gravity of a black hole is so strong that even if a tiny corner of something crosses the event horizon the rest of it would be pulled through too! Black holes are mad aren’t they!

    • Photo: Geoff McBride

      Geoff McBride answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Gravity would streatch it as it got closer and then drag it in. There is no escape.

    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      I think if you were that close to the event horizon, you’d have next to no chance of escaping anyway – I don’t know about it being sucked in, but you would need an incredible amount, an almost infinite amount of force for the object remainder to escape – all of the object across the event horizon would not be able to return.

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