Read Online Turn Right At Orion by Mitchell Begelman - Free Book Online
Authors: Mitchell Begelman
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gravity.
I fully intended to reach the place in the center of the disk where matter departed from its gradual spiral path and made its final plunge into the holeâthe âorbit of instabilityâ that I had so carefully avoided in the center of the Milky Way. That place, I calculated, should be about 100 kilometers from the horizon of the black hole, which turned out to have a mass equal to that of 15 Suns. I was now so adept at navigating Rocinante that I would have felt comfortable going in nearly that close. Noting that the stream flowing in from the companion had merged into the disk at a distance of about 1 million kilometers from the hole, I relaxed and watched the kilometers tick off as I sped inward. Then, suddenly, I became violently ill. I had never been so sick in my life. I checked my distance from the hope: 10,000 kilometers. What could be happening? It felt as though my torso and upper body were being pulled away from my lower extremities. I was riding with my head toward the black hole and was able to achieve a minor increase in comfort by turning my body sideways. But the respite proved temporary. My craft was on autopilot, heading straight for the hole, and I soon felt as though my head were being pulled apart, front from back. And as for my gut. . . well, I will spare you the details.
Iâm sure that I was about to pass out, and it was sheer luck that I managedâwith. a great effort of willâto locate and activate the reverse lever. I pulled back out to 100,000 kilometers, up and away from the disk, and collapsed in a cold sweat. The disk formed an immense floor in my field of view, its center a barely discernible spot in the distance. As I regained my composure, I immediately realized what had happened to me. At first, the
black holeâs gravity had not posed a problem, because I had been allowing Rocinante to fall almost freely toward the hole. Like any astronaut orbiting Earth, I had felt virtually weightless. But my head, being slightly closer to the black hole than my feet, had actually been subjected to a slightly stronger gravitational pull, and that difference is what had gotten me. When I came within 10,000 kilometers of the hole, the difference in gravitational pull had approached and then exceeded the normal gravity of Earth, under which a human body is designed to operate. I was indeed being pulled apart. It was as though I had somehow discovered a way to stand upright and upside down simultaneously! The blood (and every other fluid in my body) began to rush away from my middle and to pool in both extremities. A force comparable to my weight on Earth was stretching every tissue in my body. You can imagine the discomfort. When I turned sideways, the effect was diminished: Because I am thinner than I am long, the difference in the gravitational pull was correspondingly reduced. But as I approached still closer to the black hole, even the difference across my torso became intolerable. In a sense, I had suffered a milder version of the fate that befell Cygnus X-1âs companion, whose midsection had been extruded into a pointy bulge from which the accretion stream was pulled toward the black hole. I thanked the deity of mass transfer in binary stars that my encounter with extreme tidal forces had not proceeded to the gruesome outcome that was keeping Cygnus X-1 fed.
Apparently, I was not to close in on the black hole after all. I was up against physical laws that I could neither change nor circumvent. Fortunately I am a stoic at heart, and I knew that remote observation via telescope, though not the ideal way to collect data, sometimes has to do. One simply accepts that limitation as an astronomer. My ego needed to be reminded that, after all, I was closer to a black hole than anyone else had ever been. I could live with the disappointment of not getting quite as close as 100 kilometers.
Having come to terms with this unforeseen restriction on my movement, I surveyed the
I fully intended to reach the place in the center of the disk where matter departed from its gradual spiral path and made its final plunge into the holeâthe âorbit of instabilityâ that I had so carefully avoided in the center of the Milky Way. That place, I calculated, should be about 100 kilometers from the horizon of the black hole, which turned out to have a mass equal to that of 15 Suns. I was now so adept at navigating Rocinante that I would have felt comfortable going in nearly that close. Noting that the stream flowing in from the companion had merged into the disk at a distance of about 1 million kilometers from the hole, I relaxed and watched the kilometers tick off as I sped inward. Then, suddenly, I became violently ill. I had never been so sick in my life. I checked my distance from the hope: 10,000 kilometers. What could be happening? It felt as though my torso and upper body were being pulled away from my lower extremities. I was riding with my head toward the black hole and was able to achieve a minor increase in comfort by turning my body sideways. But the respite proved temporary. My craft was on autopilot, heading straight for the hole, and I soon felt as though my head were being pulled apart, front from back. And as for my gut. . . well, I will spare you the details.
Iâm sure that I was about to pass out, and it was sheer luck that I managedâwith. a great effort of willâto locate and activate the reverse lever. I pulled back out to 100,000 kilometers, up and away from the disk, and collapsed in a cold sweat. The disk formed an immense floor in my field of view, its center a barely discernible spot in the distance. As I regained my composure, I immediately realized what had happened to me. At first, the
black holeâs gravity had not posed a problem, because I had been allowing Rocinante to fall almost freely toward the hole. Like any astronaut orbiting Earth, I had felt virtually weightless. But my head, being slightly closer to the black hole than my feet, had actually been subjected to a slightly stronger gravitational pull, and that difference is what had gotten me. When I came within 10,000 kilometers of the hole, the difference in gravitational pull had approached and then exceeded the normal gravity of Earth, under which a human body is designed to operate. I was indeed being pulled apart. It was as though I had somehow discovered a way to stand upright and upside down simultaneously! The blood (and every other fluid in my body) began to rush away from my middle and to pool in both extremities. A force comparable to my weight on Earth was stretching every tissue in my body. You can imagine the discomfort. When I turned sideways, the effect was diminished: Because I am thinner than I am long, the difference in the gravitational pull was correspondingly reduced. But as I approached still closer to the black hole, even the difference across my torso became intolerable. In a sense, I had suffered a milder version of the fate that befell Cygnus X-1âs companion, whose midsection had been extruded into a pointy bulge from which the accretion stream was pulled toward the black hole. I thanked the deity of mass transfer in binary stars that my encounter with extreme tidal forces had not proceeded to the gruesome outcome that was keeping Cygnus X-1 fed.
Apparently, I was not to close in on the black hole after all. I was up against physical laws that I could neither change nor circumvent. Fortunately I am a stoic at heart, and I knew that remote observation via telescope, though not the ideal way to collect data, sometimes has to do. One simply accepts that limitation as an astronomer. My ego needed to be reminded that, after all, I was closer to a black hole than anyone else had ever been. I could live with the disappointment of not getting quite as close as 100 kilometers.
Having come to terms with this unforeseen restriction on my movement, I surveyed the
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