Sep 11, 2026 · 2 min · 3 segments
In this episode of Cosmically Curious, host Patrick McNamee sits down with Saint Anselm College astronomer Nicole Gallucci to clear up common black hole myths, explain the bizarre physics of…
Nicole GallucciGuest
Patrick McNamee KingHostSo, Nicole, I know from sci-fi movies that black holes are like massive pools of gravity or something.
Black holes don't have a great reputation, particularly in old-timey sci-fi.
And in our imaginations, we think of black holes sucking everything into it.
So, for example, if the sun in our solar system was replaced with a black hole, the same mass of the sun, that would just suck for a lot of reasons.
Because we'd have no light and then we'd have no energy and then the plants would die, blah, blah, blah.
So you have to get really close to a black hole to start seeing the effects where things get torn apart and pulled into a process called spaghettification.
It's only things that get super, super close to it that are going to be pulled into the range where things get distorted.
Everything else is just going to keep orbiting around it, just like any gravitational object.
Yeah, it does grow in mass as things, you know, disappear behind its event horizon and essentially become part of it.
The way that the matter gets there is interesting because when you're close to your supermassive black hole, gravity doesn't work the way it does in our everyday life.
It works more as described by Einstein in general relativity, where space is warped and time is warped.
And so if you're close to a black hole, say your feet are pointing towards the black hole and your head is pointing away, you're feeling a much stronger gravitational pull on your feet.
So, Nicole, I know from sci-fi movies that black holes are like massive pools of gravity or something.
Black holes don't have a great reputation, particularly in old-timey sci-fi.
And in our imaginations, we think of black holes sucking everything into it.
So, for example, if the sun in our solar system was replaced with a black hole, the same mass of the sun, that would just suck for a lot of reasons.
Because we'd have no light and then we'd have no energy and then the plants would die, blah, blah, blah.
So you have to get really close to a black hole to start seeing the effects where things get torn apart and pulled into a process called spaghettification.
It's only things that get super, super close to it that are going to be pulled into the range where things get distorted.
Everything else is just going to keep orbiting around it, just like any gravitational object.
Yeah, it does grow in mass as things, you know, disappear behind its event horizon and essentially become part of it.
The way that the matter gets there is interesting because when you're close to your supermassive black hole, gravity doesn't work the way it does in our everyday life.
It works more as described by Einstein in general relativity, where space is warped and time is warped.
And so if you're close to a black hole, say your feet are pointing towards the black hole and your head is pointing away, you're feeling a much stronger gravitational pull on your feet.
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2 of 2
How Black Holes Tear You Apart
Getting too close can stretch you apart
Black Holes Are Not Vacuums
The truth about what black holes do
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