Two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbital dance at the core of the distant galaxy OJ 287. This diagram shows their sizes relative to the solar system. The larger one, with about 18 billion times the mass of our sun (right), would encompass all the planets in the solar system with room to spare. The smaller one is about 150 million times the mass of our sun (left), which would be large enough to swallow up everything out to the asteroid belt, just inside the orbit of Jupiter.
And it’s the small black holes that’ll fuck you up. Once you’re in that gravity well you’re never getting out.
Don’t larger black holes work the same way?
Yeah. Technically you aren’t screwed unless you are in an orbit that crosses the event horizon.
Although I wonder if the accretion disk produces enough drag that an orbit could eventually fall into the black hole.
Also, time gets funky when you get closer and closer to the black hole.
But in any case the behavior is the same. It’s just a lot bigger.
Why would it be different from a suns gravity well? Unless you mean the event horizon but I don’t get why the small one would be worse.
He’s probably talking about tidal forces. Gravity falls off with the square of distance, so the closer you get to the center, the greater the difference in gravitational strength becomes for every meter of distance. With a supermassive, you’re far enough from the center that your head and feet experience similar levels of gravity at the event horizon.
With a small one you’re much closer to the center, so your head and feet experience extremely different gravity, which rips you apart.
Is the small one that small though. I mean its still like the inner planets size.
Yeah, these two specifically are huge and huger. lol