What Would You See Inside a Black Hole? | General Relativity

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the visual experience of an astronaut crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, specifically regarding the appearance of the surrounding star field and the spacecraft. Participants explore whether the astronaut would observe a normal star field, a distorted view, or complete darkness. Andrew Hamilton's educational videos provide a comprehensive overview of the infall process into a black hole, detailing the visual phenomena encountered at various stages, including the moment just after crossing the event horizon.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of General Relativity principles
  • Familiarity with black hole characteristics, particularly event horizons
  • Basic knowledge of astrophysics and stellar phenomena
  • Awareness of visual effects in extreme gravitational fields
NEXT STEPS
  • Watch Andrew Hamilton's videos on black hole infall processes
  • Research the effects of gravitational lensing near black holes
  • Study the implications of event horizons in General Relativity
  • Explore the concept of spaghettification and its effects on objects near black holes
USEFUL FOR

Astronomers, astrophysics students, science enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the visual and physical phenomena associated with black holes and General Relativity.

Randy Subers
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TL;DR
What does it look like looking out from inside a black hole?
For this assume General and Special Relativity and not some of the quantum enhancements that have been proposed for them. If I were an astronaut who just crossed the event horizon on a galaxy center type black hole (big enough so I would not be immediately spaghettified) and avoided the accretion disk and any jets on the way in and looked outward (away from the singularity) just after I crossed the event horizon, what would I see?
A more or less normal star field?
A severely distorted star field?
Pure black? or
Something really strange?

Also if I then looked around my spacecraft would it look normal (pre-spagettification)?
 
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I suggest a forum search. Topics has been brought up many times.
 
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Randy Subers said:
just after I crossed the event horizon, what would I see?

Andrew Hamilton has created a great series of videos on this (not just the specific point right after the astronaut crosses the horizon, but the whole infall process, from far above the horizon all the way through down to the singularity):

https://jila.colorado.edu/hamilton/black-holes/journey-schwarzschild-black-hole
 
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