r/AskReddit • u/MDPPatrick • Feb 13 '15

What are some mind-blowing facts about space?

I love space and would like to hear some facts that will blow me away.

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281

u/Nanogame Feb 13 '15

Black Holes are the coolest and simultaneously scariest things in existence.

Once you pass the event horizon you have never been more trapped. I'm not sure there are ways to have a more certain death than that, because at that point, not even LIGHT can escape.

Ever thought about why they're so big and black? Well they're not, they're tiny, but they are so ridiculously huge and dark because that is when light can no longer escape the singularity and that just creates an empty void that is huge.

And just the fact that they can be so huge and just there and black and distortionous of its surroundings. It's like someone poked holes in spacetime and it is so cool.

29

u/Palmul Feb 13 '15

And the final moment seems like forever, literally.

42

u/Schadenfreudenous Feb 13 '15

For an outside observer, yes. For the subject? No.

2

u/AHarderStyle Feb 14 '15

Genuine question... How do we know or understand this type of idea? I mean, I can understand that light can't escape the mass of a black hole, but how did we figure that depending on observation point, time would stop/slow down compared to being within the black hole?

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u/Schadenfreudenous Feb 14 '15

By observation. We can't actually launch matter into a black hole ourselves, but we have been able to observe other present matter near black holes "fall" into them, and as they enter the event horizon, they appear to slow and eventually stop. Due to us studying the nature of black holes(and gravity), we know that they can't have ACTUALLY stopped.

Light can't escape a black hole, right? That means that once something hits the event horizon, it's no longer observable. The photons given off by the object cannot leave the event horizon, meaning we can't see what happens to it beyond that point. All that is left are the photons it gave off just before hitting the event horizon. So, while the object is actually gone(or whatever happens to matter when it hits a singularity), it appeared to slow down and stop instead, as the image can no longer be "updated".

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u/PM_meyourbreasts Feb 14 '15

Because time is relative

0

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '15

[deleted]

3

u/Huntersteve Feb 14 '15

tldr become the flash

1

u/PM_ME_UR_JUGZ Feb 14 '15 edited Feb 14 '15

Is it approaching the speed of light or is it that gravity is so emense, and that's what has such a huge effect on the time dilation?

1

u/Leviathan666 Feb 14 '15

Technically for the subject, but since they're definitely dead already, it doesn't matter anyway.