NASA has released a new graphic that shows what would happen if someone were to fall into a supermassive black hole like the one at the center of our galaxy. Researchers used the Discover supercomputer at NASA’s Climate Simulation Center to create the simulation, which depicts an observation angle when falling through an accretion disk of glowing gas around a black hole. The video changes as you descend, with light particles swirling around the black hole until you reach the event horizon, where even light cannot escape.

Black holes are some of the densest objects in space and researchers have a good understanding of the physics surrounding them. Gravity around a black hole is so strong that it distorts the space-time field and objects appear to move close to the speed of light. This phenomenon causes time to slow down near a black hole. While stellar-mass black holes are more common in the universe, supermassive black holes are much larger and relatively calmer than their smaller counterparts. Falling into one of these massive cosmic entities would still result in a spaghetti effect on any observer who gets too close, with gravity near the black hole destroying them within seconds and compressing matter to reach the singularity almost instantly after crossing the event horizon.

The new simulation is based on data from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and observations made by Event Horizon Telescope on May 7th, 2021. It provides us with yet another glimpse into these fascinating phenomena that continue to challenge our understanding of space and physics.