• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I was under the impression that the time it would take you to get spaghettified would render the fear of such an experience irrelevant, as you’d be long dead of natural causes before then.

    • observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      In the case you are unlucky enough to encounter the black hole “heads on” and fall into it radially, the proper time timescale to spaghettification is the size of the event horizon divided by the speed of light. The most supermassive black holes will have a horizon of around one light day, so that’s what we’re working with, a matter of days. If you come in on the most tangential orbit possible though, I guess you’re buying some time but I’ve never heard that it’s supposed to take many years of proper time (I doubt that claim a little bit, but haven’t calculated myself).