It’s invisible, deadly
and sucking up
every bit of matter in its path.
The most massive black hole
in the known Universe
is headed right toward Earth.
Black holes aren’t that much different
from any other object in the Universe
that has mass.
Except that they are really, really dense.
At their center is a singularity,
an infinitely small point,
where all its matter is compressed.
The more matter that is condensed
into this singularity,
the stronger the gravitational pull.
Most black holes are the remnants of massive stars
and generally range between 10 to 100 solar masses.
For the record, one solar mass
is the equivalent of 333,000 Earths.
That’s a lot of gravity.
But supermassive black holes,
which lurk at the centers of many galaxies,
could contain millions or billions of solar masses.
And scientists think there are black holes
as large as 100 billion solar masses,
aka stupendously large black holes, or SLABs.
Catch one of these moving toward our Solar System
and get ready to wave bye-bye
to all your conceptions of space and time.
That's right, it's time to say auf wiedersehen, adiós, ciao.
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Languages bring us together, but that black hole might rip us apart.
The largest known black hole,
TON 618,
has begun its long trek directly toward our Solar System
with its 66 billion solar masses in tow.
And long trek is no overstatement.
It would be traveling
at least 10 billion light-years to reach us.
As it steamrolled through space,
it would gobble every bit of dust and gas in its path.
It would also snack on many stars
before it even reaches the Milky Way.
Depending on its route,
this could mean hundreds of billions
of stars added to its size.
Before making first contact with our galaxy,
it would have pulled in enough matter
to disrupt its neatly organized spiral.
You’d be able to detect its initial approach toward us
as you observe the increasingly intense radiation it emits.
Eventually, it would come bearing down
on the last of the Milky Way's spiral arms,
the Orion Arm.
TON 618 would gobble up
its entire 20,000 light-year length.
It would be like an unbelievably long buffet line
straight to the center of our galaxy.
Somewhere along this line,
it would finally knock on our front door.
The Oort Cloud is a spherical shell of icy debris
that surrounds the Solar System.
Or at least it was before TON 618 showed up.
It would then continue on its way
and consume the Kuiper Belt,
just beyond the orbit of Neptune.
The danger to Earth would steadily increase
as hundreds of thousands of icy bodies
would be sent hurtling this way.
As TON 618 kept pushing forward,
it would devour the ice giants,
Neptune and Uranus.
And the gas giants,
Saturn and Jupiter,
would be pulled apart atom by atom.
Not only the planets,
but their moons and every asteroid that the giant black hole comes across.
Any future plans by us to settle on Mars
would be squashed
as the red planet would end up right smack in the middle of this black hole too.
And now, there would be nothing left in the way
of TON 618 and Earth.
Now, while the center of this stupendously large black hole
would be almost 295 billion km (180 billion mi) away,
we’d finally be right up against its event horizon.
That’s the boundary marking a black hole’s point of no return.
The pull of its gravity
would now be totally inescapable.
Our whole planet would stretch out
while simultaneously getting more and more compressed.
Eventually, Earth would become like a strand of spaghetti
slurped into an empty black void.
Then, this black hole monstrosity
would gobble up the Sun in one big gulp.
And now at the center of what was once our Solar System,
TON 618 would occupy nearly as much space.
It would extend almost all the way to the inner edges
of what used to be the Oort Cloud.
And since it's not polite to leave any food on your plate,
TON 618 would continue on its path
toward the black hole at the center of the Milky Way,
Sagittarius A*.
As these two massive black holes collide,
the colision would be so powerful
that it could cause ripples in the very fabric of space-time.
But hold on.
What happened to you as you got pulled into the black hole?
Well, that’s a story
for another WHAT IF.