But
spaghettification is hardly imminent, even if we're moving dangerously close to that black hole's gravity well.
This theoretical process is known as
spaghettification.
The tidal forces become too strong too fast for you to survive to the event horizon, resulting in your
spaghettification (yes, that's the technical term).
My article [1] demonstrated that the density distribution of the OS "dust cloud" becomes concentrated near the surface as it shrinks to the gravitational radius; no exotic process like the modern black-hole one of "
spaghettification" [6] occurs when a notional spaceship crosses the event horizon.
The Wikipedia page on '
spaghettification' received more hits in a few days than it had in years, and literally everybody on your newsfeed knew that ice clouds were the most unrealistic part of the movie.
But he's confident it would represent a minor inconvenience compared with Imminent death by
spaghettification (SN: 5/31/14, p.
Dr Charlie Lineweaver, ANU, challenged our perception of space with reference to "the ubiquitous grapefruit" and "
spaghettification of the Chief Scientist" all making our heads spin in the process.
If that traveler riding the surface of the collapsing star could survive the gravitational forces, could avoid
spaghettification and fall freely and undisturbed through the singularity at the black hole's center, where would he end up?
On Facebook, we asked readers to speculate about the astronaut's fate, and most sided with
spaghettification. Charles Reardon saw a potential silver lining to a horrifying death in deep space: "I'd imagine that, because time outside the black hole would be moving so fast compared to the astronaut, he'd probably be watching all the stars going supernova and being reborn like a fireworks show!" Mark Cedrick De Vera jump-started a discussion about whether
spaghettification would be painful, and most readers agreed that the poor spaceman would be dead before his brain knew what was happening.