Main Page | Space Travel | Wormholes | Blackholes | Bibliography |
One of the most fasinating effects of gravity is how affects time. General relativity states, and we have been able to test on earth, that time moves slower where gravity is greater. The difference between the flow of time on Earth, with its gravity, and in space where gravity is minimal, is small, but where time dilation really becomes visible is around the most concentrated sources of gravity in our universe, blackholes.
Around blackholes time slows progressively(from a frame of reference away from the blackhole). And at the event horizon, it stops completely(again, from an outside frame of reference), which is why in the process of becoming blackholes, stars stop collapsing once their radius reaches their own event horizon.
One planet the expedition in Interstellar must investigate orbits the blackhole Gargantua. Before landing, the crew notes the fact that because of it's proximity to Gargantua, time on the surface would pass at a rate such that minutes on the surface would be years where they were currently in orbit.