IS EARTH EVER GOING TO BE PULLED INTO A BLACK HOLE?

Black holes are areas of space in which gravity is too strong that no light, not the fastest object in space, can escape. Is it possible that Earth could be pulled into the black hole?

What are the odds of Earth being swallowed by a black hole?

According to experts speaking to Newsweek, there is virtually no chance that the Earth will be hit by a black hole earlier it’s swallowed by sunlight in approximately five billion years. “For starters,” Doug Gobeille of the University of Rhode Island’s Physics department stated to Newsweek. The density of the universe and the galaxy is much higher but practically non-existent. Gobeille explained that objects we might study to be ‘large’ or ‘dense’ in the universe’s grand scheme are quite rare. He referred to planets, stars, and their associated stellar remnants stars. This includes white dwarfs, nucleon stars, and black holes. Although there are many stars in our galaxy, it is rare for them to meet randomly because of the vast distance between them. Jonathan Zrake from Clemson University, an assistant professor of Astronomy and Physics told Newsweek.

Gobeille stated that such an encounter was so unlikely because it would not be possible for a hyper-advanced civilization to deliberately ‘launch’ the black hole towards our solar system. He said, “In same manner that we don’t typically worry about the stars passing through our solar system, this can also be protracted to all objects within the galaxy.” Although stars do occasionally wander too close to the sun to grab uncommon comets, this is not the extent of their own gravitational impacts on the solar systems.

Are any black holes ‘nearby’ a danger?

Experts believe that the black holes closest to our solar system’s surface are too far away to affect it. V616 Monocerotis (also called V616 Mon), considered one of the nearest black holes to our solar systems, is other than 3,000 plus light-years away. Gobeille stated that even if the black holes consumed their binary partners, there is not enough mass to produce any outbursts or radiation. We would overlook the impact at Earth’s distance if we were to observe it directly with our powerful tools. Earth would experience zero effect.” There are two primary sizes of black holes: supermassive and stellar. However, recent research suggests that there may be an intermediate size. The masses of black holes in the constellations are often several times larger than our sun’s. The groups of the supermassive black hole can range from millions to billions.

What If Our planet gets Sucked into a Black Hole?

If a black hole somehow came very close to Earth (closer than the moon’s orbit), then our planet would be likely to be destroyed by the extreme gravity forces. Drake stated that the atmosphere and oceans would be removed from the Earth’s surface and that molten steel would flow from the earth’s core into space. The terrestrial debris would orbit the black hole and get vaporized into ionized gases, i.e. A gas that is composed of atoms and molecules that have lost or gained electrons. According to Zrake, the gas would form an accretion disc around the black hole. Most of it would be consumed within a few hours or days. “Energy from the plummeting gas would generate powerful winds of plasma into space and create high-energy radiation. He said that the light could be detected by extra-terrestrial astronomers nearby as a flash of hard Xrays.

However, the odds of such a scenario happening are extremely low. A scenario in which a black hole is sufficiently close to the Earth to have an effect on our planet, though not enough to cause it to explode, is slightly more likely, but still extremely unlikely.