Humanity has resided on Earth for 200,000 – 500,000 years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But what would happen if a black hole came close to Earth and threatened our survival? The good news is that there is an extremely low (1 in a trillion) chance that a black hole would stray close enough to Earth to cause serious damage to our orbit and solar system, but in the off chance that a black hole does hit Earth, what would happen?
- If a black hole enters the solar system, it would send comets towards Earth and absorb all of the planets and mass in its path, including the Sun and Earth. Our solar system would be reduced to nothingness, swallowed by the black hole.
- Earth itself would be “spaghettified”, and our planet would be torn into nothingness as well.
- Your personal experience of being sucked into a black hole would be similar, first, you would feel as if you were falling into the center of the Earth, and once you reach the center, you would get stretched out until your body turns into minuscule atoms, and you would cease to exist.
The closest chance that Earth has to getting near a black hole is in 4 billion years, when our galaxy, the Milky Way, collides with the Andromeda galaxy. When they collide, the supermassive black hole sitting in the center of the Milky Way could get close enough to Earth and swallow it because of the force of the collision between the two galaxies.
Recently, scientists have unveiled the first picture of the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way, which is called Sagittarius A*. The bright gases surrounding the black hole allowed scientists to gain more visibility and photograph the black hole after 5 years of attempting to get a picture.
In conclusion, the chances of a black hole affecting humanity in our lifetimes are close to zero, so we don’t have to worry about black holes ending the human race. Well, at least not for the next 4 billion years.
Citations:
Siegel, Ethan. “What Will Happen When a Black Hole Hits Earth?” Big Think, 22 Feb. 2022, https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/black-hole-hit-earth/.
Siegel, Ethan. “What Would We Experience If Earth Spontaneously Turned into a Black Hole?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Apr. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/10/15/what-would-we-experience-if-earth-spontaneously-turned-into-a-black-hole/?sh=778e2aa51199.
Clery, Daniel. “Shadow of Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Seen for the First Time.” Science, 12 May 2022, https://www.science.org/content/article/shadow-milky-way-s-giant-black-hole-revealed-astronomers.
O’Callaghan, Jonathan. “What Would Happen If a Black Hole Entered Our Solar System?: Space Facts – Astronomy, the Solar System & Outer Space: All about Space Magazine.” Space Facts Astronomy the Solar System Outer Space All About Space Magazine, 19 Oct. 2018, https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/what-would-happen-if-a-black-hole-entered-our-solar-system/.