TON 618 Is Far More Extreme Than You Think — Transcript

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1. 0:00You are strapped into the pilot seat,
2. 0:02and the engines are already lit.
3. 0:04Somewhere ahead of you, past every star
4. 0:06you can name, is a faint blue speck, not
5. 0:09far below the handle of the Big Dipper.
6. 0:11In 1957, astronomers at the Tonantzintla
7. 0:14Observatory in Mexico looked at that
8. 0:16speck and wrote it down as a star,
9. 0:19number 618 in their catalog. Nothing
10. 0:22special. They were wrong in the most
11. 0:24spectacular way possible. In 1970, radio
12. 0:27astronomers picked up signals coming
13. 0:29from the same spot. When others studied
14. 0:31its light more closely, it turned out to
15. 0:33be stretched far toward the red. That
16. 0:35speck is not a star. It is a quasar
17. 0:38called Ton 618, and it is so far away
18. 0:41that its light left home more than 10
19. 0:43billion years ago, long before the sun
20. 0:45or Earth existed. At the center of it
21. 0:48sits one of the heaviest black holes
22. 0:49anyone has ever weighed. One widely
23. 0:52cited estimate puts it at about 66
24. 0:54billion times the mass of the sun. Other
25. 0:56studies come in lower, in the tens of
26. 0:58billions. Either way, you are flying
27. 1:01toward something that makes the word big
28. 1:02sound like a polite understatement. So,
29. 1:05you push the throttle forward. Your ship
30. 1:07is magic in exactly one way. It can get
31. 1:10close to the speed of light without
32. 1:11falling apart. You watch Earth shrink to
33. 1:13a dot, then the sun, and then the whole
34. 1:16Milky Way becomes a smudge behind you.
35. 1:18You are now the fastest human who has
36. 1:20ever lived, which is a nice title to
37. 1:22hold for the few seconds before you
38. 1:23realize it does not matter.
39. 1:25Because here is the first problem. You
40. 1:27will never get there. Not slowly. Never.
41. 1:31The universe is not a fixed room with
42. 1:33Ton 618 sitting in the far corner. Space
43. 1:35itself is expanding, and that expansion
44. 1:38is speeding up. For nearby galaxies,
45. 1:40that barely matters.
46. 1:42But Ton 618 is so far away that the
47. 1:44space between you and it is growing
48. 1:46faster than you could ever close the
49. 1:48gap. Its light has been stretched to
50. 1:50more than three times its original
51. 1:51wavelength on the way here. Astronomers
52. 1:54call the edge of the reachable universe
53. 1:55the cosmic event horizon, and Ton 618
54. 1:58sits beyond it.
55. 2:00That means even a beam of light fired
56. 2:02toward it today will never arrive. You
57. 2:04could fly at almost light speed for a
58. 2:06trillion years, and your target would
59. 2:08still be slipping away.
60. 2:10You have a ship. You have fuel. You have
61. 2:12ambition. What you do not have is a
62. 2:14universe willing to cooperate. So, let's
63. 2:17cheat.
64. 2:18You close your eyes in the cockpit, and
65. 2:19when you open them again, you are
66. 2:21already there. Not at Ton 618 as it
67. 2:23might look today, but at Ton 618 as it
68. 2:25looked when that ancient light left. The
69. 2:27version you have been staring at this
70. 2:29whole time. And the first thing you
71. 2:30notice is that space is not black.
72. 2:33It is glowing, faintly, everywhere, like
73. 2:36you have flown into a fog lit from the
74. 2:38inside. Observations have revealed an
75. 2:40enormous halo of gas around Ton 618,
76. 2:43spread across a region larger than our
77. 2:45entire galaxy, lit up by the quasar in
78. 2:47the middle. You are not near the black
79. 2:49hole yet.
80. 2:50You are not even close. You are just
81. 2:52inside its glow, the way a moth is
82. 2:54inside the light of a lamp long before
83. 2:56it reaches the bulb. You look toward the
84. 2:58center, and you immediately regret it.
85. 3:01There is a point of light ahead of you
86. 3:02that is brighter than anything you have
87. 3:03ever seen. Ton 618 shines with the light
88. 3:06of more than a hundred trillion suns.
89. 3:08Whole galaxies, each packed with
90. 3:10billions of stars, would look dim next
91. 3:12to it. It throws hard shadows across
92. 3:14your cockpit. Your hand on the control
93. 3:16stick has a shadow. Your coffee cup has
94. 3:18a shadow. And the thing casting those
95. 3:20shadows is still light-years away.
96. 3:22Then the alarms start. Even from a
97. 3:25hundred light-years out, this one point
98. 3:27would hit you harder than the sun hits
99. 3:29Earth on a summer afternoon. And most of
100. 3:31what pours out of a quasar is not gentle
101. 3:33visible light. It is ultraviolet. It is
102. 3:36x-rays. It is a flood of energy strong
103. 3:38enough to shove clouds of gas around.
104. 3:41Your temperature readout climbs. Your
105. 3:42radiation counter climbs faster.
106. 3:45Realistically, a ship flying this deep
107. 3:47into a quasar's glare would be heated,
108. 3:49stripped, and eventually destroyed long
109. 3:51before it reached anything interesting.
110. 3:53So, for the rest of this trip, your ship
111. 3:56has a shield that does not exist. It is
112. 3:58a very good shield. Please do not ask
113. 4:01how it works. You keep flying inward.
114. 4:03Clouds of gas start to appear scattered
115. 4:06around the center like leaves circling a
116. 4:08drain. They are not drifting. They are
117. 4:10racing around the black hole at
118. 4:12thousands of kilometers per second.
119. 4:14This is actually how astronomers weighed
120. 4:16TON 618 in the first place. They
121. 4:18measured how fast this gas was moving,
122. 4:21worked out how much mass it would take
123. 4:22to keep it in orbit, and got a number
124. 4:24with 11 digits. One of these clouds
125. 4:27streaks past your window. For a second,
126. 4:29the light dims. Then it is gone, and you
127. 4:32realize you are now somewhere that gas
128. 4:33moves faster than anything humans have
129. 4:35ever built. Then you see the disc. It
130. 4:38starts as a thin bright line across the
131. 4:40darkness. As you get closer, it opens
132. 4:42into a flat whirlpool of glowing gas, so
133. 4:45wide that its edges disappear beyond
134. 4:47your window frame.
135. 4:49This is the accretion disc, the black
136. 4:51hole's meal in progress. Gas spirals
137. 4:53inward, rubs against itself, and heats
138. 4:55up. The closer it gets to the center,
139. 4:58the hotter it becomes, shifting from
140. 5:00deep red at the outer edges to a
141. 5:02blinding blue-white glare further in.
142. 5:05And this is the strange thing about a
143. 5:06quasar. The black hole itself gives off
144. 5:09no light at all. All of that brightness,
145. 5:12the 100 trillion suns, comes from the
146. 5:14food, not the eater. The black hole is
147. 5:17the only thing in this entire scene that
148. 5:19is completely dark.
149. 5:21And it is waiting right in the middle.
150. 5:23At first, you cannot even see it because
151. 5:25it is buried behind the glare. Then, as
152. 5:27you drop closer, a shadow forms in the
153. 5:30center of the disc, a perfectly black
154. 5:32region ringed with light. Its size makes
155. 5:35no sense.
156. 5:37If TON 618 really weighs around 66
157. 5:39billion suns, its event horizon has a
158. 5:42radius of roughly 1,300 times the
159. 5:44distance between Earth and the Sun. That
160. 5:46is more than 40 times the distance from
161. 5:48the Sun to Neptune. You could drop our
162. 5:50entire solar system into it and it would
163. 5:52vanish like a coin falling into a well.
164. 5:55Light itself would need about a week
165. 5:56just to cross from the edge of that
166. 5:58darkness to the center. You are looking
167. 6:00at a hole bigger than everything
168. 6:01humanity has ever explored combined many
169. 6:04times over.
170. 6:06If you're enjoying this video, please
171. 6:08hit the subscribe button. It genuinely
172. 6:10helps keep the channel alive. Now you do
173. 6:13the one thing no sensible pilot would
174. 6:15ever do. You point the nose straight at
175. 6:17it. You expect to feel the pull. You
176. 6:20brace for a crushing weight, for your
177. 6:22body to slam back into the seat. Nothing
178. 6:25happens.
179. 6:26You are weightless. The coffee cup
180. 6:28floats. You float. The black hole is
181. 6:31pulling on you with ferocious strength,
182. 6:33but it is pulling on you, your seat,
183. 6:35your ship, and your coffee all equally.
184. 6:37So everything simply falls together.
185. 6:39Falling, it turns out, feels exactly
186. 6:41like floating. You are dropping toward
187. 6:44the heaviest object you have ever heard
188. 6:45of, and your body thinks it is on a
189. 6:47break.
190. 6:48You might expect the next problem to be
191. 6:50spaghettification,
192. 6:52the famous effect where gravity pulls
193. 6:53harder on your feet than on your head
194. 6:55and stretches you into a noodle.
195. 6:57Near a small black hole, that would
196. 6:59already be killing you at this distance.
197. 7:01But TON 618 is so enormous that out
198. 7:05here, the difference between the pull on
199. 7:07your head and the pull on your feet is
200. 7:08tiny. Strange as it sounds, the bigger
201. 7:11the black hole, the gentler its edge. A
202. 7:14black hole a few times the mass of the
203. 7:15Sun would tear you apart long before you
204. 7:17reached its horizon. This one barely
205. 7:19notices that you have a head and toes at
206. 7:21all. The sky, however, has noticed you.
207. 7:25As you get closer, the view through your
208. 7:27window starts to warp. Light from the
209. 7:29far side of the disk is bent up and over
210. 7:31the dark center. So the glowing disk
211. 7:33appears to wrap above it and below it at
212. 7:35the same time, like a halo that refuses
213. 7:37to stay flat. Stars near the edge of the
214. 7:40shadow smear into arcs.
215. 7:42There is a region out here where light
216. 7:44itself can orbit. A thin shell of space
217. 7:46where a beam of light could, in theory,
218. 7:49circle the black hole again and again.
219. 7:51If you could hover there and look
220. 7:53sideways, your line of sight would wrap
221. 7:55all the way around the darkness. You do
222. 7:57not hover. You keep falling.
223. 8:00You pass the inner edge of the disk, the
224. 8:02point where gas can no longer hold a
225. 8:03stable orbit. Further out, matter can
226. 8:06swirl for a very long time. In here, it
227. 8:09simply plunges. The glowing whirlpool
228. 8:11falls away behind you, and ahead there
229. 8:14is nothing but black.
230. 8:15Back home, if anyone could somehow watch
231. 8:17you, they would see something very
232. 8:19different. To them, your ship would seem
233. 8:21to slow down as it neared the edge. Your
234. 8:23clocks would appear to tick slower and
235. 8:25slower. Your light would grow redder and
236. 8:27dimmer until your ship faded into a
237. 8:29frozen smear just above the horizon.
238. 8:31From the outside, nobody would ever
239. 8:33actually see you go in.
240. 8:35From the inside, you go in.
241. 8:37And this is the part that surprises
242. 8:38almost everyone. When you cross the
243. 8:40event horizon of Ton 618, nothing
244. 8:43happens. There is no wall, no flash,
245. 8:47no bump, no sign announcing that you
246. 8:49have just made the worst decision in the
247. 8:50history of your species. The horizon is
248. 8:52not a surface. It is simply the point
249. 8:55after which every possible path for you
250. 8:56leads further inward. You look back, and
251. 8:59the universe is still there.
252. 9:01Stars, the glowing disk, the light from
253. 9:03outside, all of it keeps falling in
254. 9:05after you, squeezed into a bright patch
255. 9:08behind you as you sink. You can still
256. 9:10see out. You just can no longer send
257. 9:12anything back.
258. 9:13You try anyway. You fire your thrusters
259. 9:15at full power, straight away from the
260. 9:17center.
261. 9:19It does not help. In fact, it makes
262. 9:21things worse.
263. 9:22Inside a black hole, the center is no
264. 9:24longer a place in front of you. It is a
265. 9:26moment ahead of you, the same way
266. 9:28tomorrow is a moment ahead of you right
267. 9:30now. Turning around does not turn you
268. 9:32away from it, any more than walking
269. 9:34backward makes you younger.
270. 9:36In the simplest version of the math,
271. 9:38firing your engines actually shortens
272. 9:39the time you have left. The longest
273. 9:41possible path is the lazy one, where you
274. 9:44just let yourself fall. So, you stop
275. 9:46firing, and you get time, real time.
276. 9:49For a black hole this massive, the trip
277. 9:52from the horizon to the center could
278. 9:53take somewhere between about a week and
279. 9:5512 days in that simplest calculation,
280. 9:58depending on which mass estimate is
281. 9:59right. If the black hole spins, the
282. 10:02inside gets more complicated, but the
283. 10:04basic idea holds. Around a small black
284. 10:07hole, the same trip would last less than
285. 10:08the blink of an eye. You, on the other
286. 10:10hand, have days. Days to look back at a
287. 10:13universe you will never return to. Days
288. 10:16to read every unanswered message on your
289. 10:18computer, knowing they will stay
290. 10:20unanswered. Days to reflect on your
291. 10:22choices, which is a lot of reflecting
292. 10:24when your main choice was this one.
293. 10:26Your ship is fine, your body is fine,
294. 10:29your coffee is cold, but that is a
295. 10:31separate issue.
296. 10:32For most of that time, the stretching
297. 10:34force on your body stays gentle.
298. 10:36But as you get closer to the center, it
299. 10:38grows without limit. In the final
300. 10:40moments, the difference between the pull
301. 10:42on your head and the pull on your feet
302. 10:44becomes overwhelming. Your ship
303. 10:46stretches, then you stretch.
304. 10:48Spaghettification does arrive after all.
305. 10:50It just waited politely until the very
306. 10:52end.
307. 10:53What happens after that, nobody knows.
308. 10:56At the center, our equations of physics
309. 10:58stop giving sensible answers. It might
310. 11:00be a point of infinite density. It might
311. 11:03be something our current theories cannot
312. 11:04describe at all. You are the first
313. 11:06person ever to find out, and you cannot
314. 11:09tell anybody.
315. 11:11Meanwhile, outside, almost nothing
316. 11:12changes. Your ship, your shield, your
317. 11:15body, and your cold coffee are added to
318. 11:17the black hole. Its mass goes up by an
319. 11:19amount so small that no instrument in
320. 11:21the universe could ever detect it. 66
321. 11:24billion suns plus one pilot. And here is
322. 11:27the final twist.
323. 11:29The light from Ton 618 took more than 10
324. 11:31billion years to reach us, and quasars
325. 11:33do not shine forever. They blaze while
326. 11:35there is plenty of gas falling in, and
327. 11:37they fade when the food runs out. The
328. 11:39quasar you flew toward, the one shining
329. 11:41like a hundred trillion suns, may have
330. 11:44gone quiet billions of years ago.
331. 11:46The black hole would still be there,
332. 11:47still enormous, but dark, sitting in a
333. 11:50galaxy that has long since moved on. You
334. 11:52spent your entire trip chasing a light
335. 11:54that was already a memory. Which,
336. 11:56honestly, is a very human way to fall
337. 11:59into a black hole.