Would it be possible to send a probe of some kind into a black hole?

Question

I watched a video on Google Video. It was a BBC documentary and from the way I saw it black holes are the most destructive force in the universe. But I've often heard of the dream of sending some sort of probe/satellite into one. Is it possible?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7052861094451788348&q=documentary+bbc+space&hl=en

Answer 1

You could send a probe to a black hole. There are two (at least) major problems, though. The first has been mentioned - unless your probe is made out of indestructible materials (yet to be discovered here on Earth) then the probe will actually be torn apart by tidal forces *before* it even reaches the black hole's event horizon. If you could find indestructible material, the signal from the black hole would cease once the probe passed the event horizon (technically it would be redshifted to infinitely long wavelengths).

The other problem is that with our present technology, we could not get a space probe to a black hole for thousands of years, assuming the probe would survive the journey (there are all sorts of perils for an interstellar journey, like cosmic rays, random meteoroids, etc). The Voyager space probes have been traveling since the 1970s and they're still in our Solar System (or right at the edge of interstellar space)! So currently it's just not feasible.

Answer 2

Black holes are not unlike any other massive object. We could send a probe and have it orbit outside the event horizon (and it wouldn't be crushed by the gravitational pull as stated by another answer).

Signals would be possible as long as the probe remained outside the event horizon. Thus the information gained would be limited to observing the exterior effects of the black hole. Once the probe crossed event horizon, all communication would end.

This is not to say that such a probe wouldn't elicit all kinds of useful information. Hawking radiation has been proposed as a mechanism by which black holes can evaporate, although I don't believe it has been directly observed.

Also, the statement in another answer that a teaspoon of black hole would outweigh the earth is not technically accurate. First, there is no way to know what this material is. Second, the core of a black hole is a singularity in space-time and as such has no physical dimensions to thus put it in a teaspoon. The writer is confusing black holes with neutron stars which have been thus described.

Answer 3

Although it would not be completely impossible, there would be many difficulties involved in sending a probe into a black hole. The biggest problem is that the closest black hole is millions of times farther away than Pluto; thousands of light years away. It would take the fastest space craft ever flown (the recently launched New Horizons mission to Pluto) over 15,000 years to go just one light year at its speed of "only" 40,000 MPH, and millions of years to get to that black hole.

Answer 4

Yes. At some point transmissions will no longer be received and it will, of course, get destroyed.

We could even send a manned mission to a black hole. But like the probe, it is a one-way trip.

Answer 5

Black Holes aren't really a hole, they just look like one because nothing can escape from them, not even light.

You could point a probe at one and send it off, but as the other users on here have said, it would be destroyed and crushed by the immense gravity.

Answer 6

No a black hole is s extremal dense with a gravitational pull stronger then anything else in the universe, anything sent would be crushed. An example of how dense the black hole is....

If you could get a teaspoon of a black hole that teaspoon would out weigh the entire Earth!

Answer 7

Sure, why not. Of course, you can send a probe to a black hole. But how do you bring it back?

Answer 8

You won't be able to send one in. The gravity of a black hole will crush any probe or spaceship before it reaches the event horizon.

Answer 9

Yes, you can send anything you like into a black hole. Just don't expect it back.

It's rather like the ultimate tax collector.

Answer 10

Mercury's answer is really splendid. I purely want to operate some more suitable thoughts - assume you should create a hypothetical "indestructible digicam" that ought to face up to the bright gravity. . . it ought to snap each and each of the images you want, yet you would under no circumstances get to work out them. The digicam ought to by no ability get away the black hollow to instruct you the images. it ought to no longer radio your pictures lower back to you both - the gravity is so good that the radio waves are also sucked lower back in. if truth be told, they could under no circumstances get farther "out" of the black hollow than the digicam - they'd purely bypass inwards. The digicam's pictures doesn't instruct you the black hollow both because any mild "ahead" of it ought to no longer even bypass outwards to enter the digicam's lens. it ought to purely look lower back and take pictures of the mild falling into the black hollow from in the back of it. once you bypass the shape horizon, all paths by ability of area lead in a unmarried route - in the route of the midsection of the black hollow. the purely possible way i'm able to imagine of to get thoughts out of the black hollow will be by ability of pairs of quantum-entangled debris which look to reflect one yet another's state directly inspite of separation. although, i do not understand the physics in the back of it, yet they say this won't be able to be used to transmit sensible thoughts. . . even if if it ought to, the digicam doesn't take care of to work out something except backward besides, so why difficulty sending pictures of no longer something lower back with quantum-entangled transmitters? as well, like Mercury reported - no actual count number can proceed to exist the bright gravity on the shape horizon besides - even protons and neutrons and electrons are ripped asunder - and maximum in all probability the quarks and gluons that compose them, and then even if smaller debris lead them to up - and so on - till purely organic ability is left to enter the black hollow. for sure, a more suitable sensible element to do will be to unload count number right into a black hollow, and capture the ability released as all this count number is ripped aside - it is the nearest we will ever come to an E=mc^2 gadget. enable's artwork on that in the previous we artwork on a digicam to bypass previous the shape horizon.