Technologies

Plunge Across a Black Hole’s Event Horizon Courtesy of New NASA Video

The clip was made over five days using NASA’s Discover supercomputer.

Black holes, those mysterious places in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, make for great movie plot twists. But Hollywood aside, there are many things humans don’t understand about a black hole. A new video from NASA attempts to show what it looks like when an object crosses the event horizon, or boundary, of a black hole. Since no technology can survive this experience, this might be as close as we’re ever going to get.

The video, created by NASA’s Jeremy Schnittman and Brian Powell, begins with a camera view floating toward a black hole. As the camera approaches, it orbits around the black hole before the camera flies into the burning gas that surrounds it. It delivers a great view of some photon rings before entering the event horizon. From there, the camera experiences the stretching and distortion that’s colorfully known as spaghettification, as it’s pulled into the black hole. As the camera is sucked in, the simulated sky shrinks. Moments later, the camera goes dark as it hits the singularity, the one-dimensional center of a black hole, where the laws of physics cease to exist.

The simulation then plays again, but with explanations overlaid to explain each step of the process. The video then replays a third time, now in slow motion, and zoomed in to show the intricacies of the photon ring layers. It ends with a final replay of the whole simulation but this time with more technical details about how it was created. In all, the simulation is much more detailed than the images we have of the Milky Way’s black hole.

It’s quite the trip, and produces some truly striking images, especially those of the photon ring layers and the sky rapidly shrinking as the camera is pulled in.

Schnittman also made a second video with a simulation of the camera making a couple of orbits around the black hole before safely escaping. That one is a 360-degree YouTube video, allowing viewers to look around and see the entire trip from multiple angles.

The simulated black hole is enormous

The black hole in the simulation measures about 16 million miles (25 million kilometers) in diameter. That’s way bigger than Earth, and comparable to some black holes in our own cosmic backyard.

In case you, too, want to go flying into a black hole, Schnittman has some advice.

«If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole,» he said. «Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.»

In short, if you opted for a small black hole in this hypothetical situation, you might be torn to bits before you got to the good stuff. Supermassive black holes seem to be the way to go.

Thanks, NASA’s Discover supercomputer

The simulation was created using NASA’s Discover supercomputer, which is located at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, Maryland. The project generated approximately 10 terabytes of data, which NASA says is equivalent to roughly half the estimated text content in the Library of Congress.

It took about five days to complete and used just 0.3% of Discover’s 129,000 processors. NASA says the same work would’ve taken about a decade on a regular laptop.

Why work on such a huge and comprehensive simulation of a black hole? Schnittman says it’s mostly for research.

«People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,» Schnittman said in a post on NASA’s site. «So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, July 3

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 3.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword stumped me in a few spots. 8-Across had me thinking of a couple different words, but I landed on it eventually. Need answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Glaswegian or Edinburgher
Answer: SCOT

5A clue: 2025 Pixar film about a boy who gets abducted by aliens
Answer: ELIO

6A clue: Strong string
Answer: TWINE

7A clue: Religious devotee with a shaved head, maybe
Answer: MONK

8A clue: Calligrapher’s assortment
Answer: INKS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Attach, as a button
Answer: SEWON

2D clue: Sound of two glasses being «cheers-ed»
Answer: CLINK

3D clue: Noises from a pig
Answer: OINKS

4D clue: «Little piggy»
Answer: TOE

6D clue: «Did I overshare?»
Answer: TMI

Technologies

Starlink Plans to Send 42K Satellites Into Space. That Could Be Bad News for the Ozone

Technologies

Scary Survey Results: Teen Drivers Are Often Looking at Their Phones

New troubling research found that entertainment is the most common reason teens use their phones behind the wheel, followed by texting and navigation.

A new study reveals that teen drivers in the US are spending more than one-fifth of their driving time distracted by their phones, with many glances lasting long enough to significantly raise the risk of a crash. Published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention and released on Thursday, the research found that, on average, teens reported looking at their phones during 21.1% of every driving trip. More than a quarter of those distractions lasted two seconds or longer, which is an amount of time widely recognized as dangerous at highway speeds.

Most distractions tied to entertainment, not emergencies

The top reason teens said they reached for their phones behind the wheel was for entertainment, cited by 65% of respondents. Texting (40%) and navigation (30%) were also common. Researchers emphasized that these distractions weren’t typically urgent, but rather habitual or social.

Teens know the risks

The study includes survey responses from 1,126 teen drivers across all four US regions, along with in-depth interviews with a smaller group of high schoolers. Most participants recognized that distracted driving is unsafe and believed their parents and peers disapproved of the behavior.

But many teens also assumed that their friends were doing it anyway, pointing to a disconnect between personal values and perceived social norms.

Teens think they can resist distractions

Interestingly, most teens expressed confidence in their ability to resist distractions. That belief, researchers suggest, could make it harder to change behavior unless future safety campaigns specifically target these attitudes.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said interventions should aim to shift social norms while also emphasizing practical steps, such as enabling «Do Not Disturb» mode and physically separating drivers from their devices.

«Distracted driving is a serious public health threat and particularly concerning among young drivers,» Robbins said. «Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death, it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident.»

What this means for parents and educators

The researchers say their findings can help guide educators and parents in developing more persuasive messaging about the dangers of distracted driving. One of the recommendations is that adults need to counter teens’ beliefs that phone use while driving is productive or harmless.

While the study’s qualitative component was limited by a small and non-urban sample, the authors believe the 38-question survey they developed can be used more broadly to assess beliefs, behaviors and the effectiveness of future safety efforts.