What is the "event horizon"?

Question

OK, now this is a link to a question asking what would happen if you got sucked into a black hole:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070317132537AAYVmIq&r=w&show_comments=true&pa=FZB6NWHjDG3N56z6v_2zWe0Pb4DISBXNWicW50pwEjUYJMr4.LOauw--&paid=add_comment#openions

The best answer chosen refers to the event horizon many times.

what is the event horizon?

O_O

Answer 1

ok i really can b bothered 2 explain but.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon

Answer 2

Part of a black hole.

An event horizon is the boundary beyond which, to an outside observer, it appears objects stop falling into a black hole. Hypothetically speaking. The object would be shredded into subatomic particles by the time it got close so unless the cloud of debris was the first ever thing to fall in an outside observer would be hard pressed to follow an objects fall visually.

To anything falling into a black hole the event horizon is the point of no return. Nothing other than Hawking radiation can pass back out of an event horizon.

The event horizon isn't the surface of the black hole's mass. The black hole has warped space-time to such a degree that standard physics no longer apply to things that pass through the event horizon. It's just a spherical margin where the gravity is too intense to allow light to escape.

An event horizon is an invisible thing with no clear cut demarcation between it and areas above it. The debris swirling around a real black hole would obscure its event horizon with blazing superheated plasma. A black hole with nothing falling in would be invisible, only betraying its presence by distorting the apparent star-field behind it from a viewers perspective.

Answer 3

A black hole is defined by the fact that its gravity is so strong not even light can escape. Since light is the fastest thing that can carry information, no information can get from the inside of a black hole back out, and no 'events' that happen inside can be seen by anyone outside. The barrier where the last photons stop being able to come back out is the point beyond which it is impossible to see, or the event horizon. The radius of the event horizon (that is to say the distance the edge of the event horizon is from the center of the black hole) depends on the black hole's mass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon

Answer 4

The even horizon is actually the definition of where the black hole is evident to the outside world. No one knows what goes on inside a black hole but it's surmised to be a point - a singularity. However outside the singularity there is a surface at which the escape velocity is the speed of light and once you cross that surface you will never escape the black hole. That surface is the event horizon and for a large black hole, you could cross it and never know it. Since you are moving at the same speed as your clock, you won't see it slow down or anything like that. Eventually of course, you get ripped apart.

Answer 5

the event horizon is the point aroind a black hole where time appears to stop, because light cannot escape any longer.

Basically, if you got sucked into a black hole, you would become chunky spagetti sauce, as you would be ripped apart by gravity. If your body were more elastic in nature, you would be stretched very thin over hundreds of miles long as you were pulled into the singularity at the center.

Answer 6

The Event Horizon is the space ship in that crazy Laurence Fishburn movie from about 10 years ago...

Answer 7

the event horizon is what is referred to as a black hole. this is the last horizon one would see if you were to go inside a black hole. there is an equation that is used to get this circumference.