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The Question
(Submitted February 17, 1997)
Before you reach the event horizon of a black hole and are pulled in,
do you first reach a period where you ORBIT and can't break out of it?
Let's say a heavy body does drag time around
with it. Fine. On a planar model, the dragging time would
represent a well of sorts around the star or whatever. Let's say that
someone found a massive enough body that has a big enough well, and
kind of slipped something into that well, what would happen?
The Answer
Yes, if the black hole is rotating, you first orbit around
it before passing through the event horizon.
In answer to your question about what would happen if you
slipped into a black hole, you'd get stretched by the tidal
forces and your time would slow down as observed by a distant
observer. To see what would happen to a body falling into a
black hole (or a neutron star), take a look at
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html
You can also learn more about black holes by taking a look at
the Imagine the Universe! page on the basic high energy
astrophysics of
black holes. You can also look in the
advanced section, where there's a
list of books you might find interesting.
Jim Lochner
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