<i> narrator: Human civilization
is under attack</i> <i> from a catastrophic
but unseen threat...</i> <i> That turns life
into a living hell</i> <i> and literally rips
the Earth apart.</i> <i> All this destruction</i> <i> comes from deep space.</i> <i> A powerful, menacing</i> <i> black hole.</i> - Nobody on Earth is safe or secure. - Is this Armageddon
or what? [explosions booming] <i> - It's a dangerous universe.</i> There's a lot of ways the human race
can go extinct. <i> narrator:
Will you be ready?</i> <i> When doomsday strikes,</i> <i> can any of us survive?</i> <i> ♪</i> ♪ [yelling] [crashing, glass shattering] <i> ♪ </i> <i>narrator: There are 100-million
black holes in our galaxy,</i> <i> with vicious
gravitational forces</i> <i> that devour
everything in their path.</i> <i> If one headed straight
for Earth,</i> <i> and we got sucked into
its deadly vortex,</i> <i> what would happen
to our planet?</i> <i> Would mankind survive? </i> - Everyone is wondering,
"What can we do? What's the next step?
How do we get through this?" [explosion booms] - The destruction never stops.
The chaos never stops. [explosion booms] It just keeps going
until everything is ripped apart
and torn asunder. [explosion booming,
screaming] <i> [bell tolls]</i> <i> narrator:
In New Mexico's high desert,</i> <i> the radio telescope
observatory,</i> <i> known as
the Very Large Array,</i> <i> scans the skies above.</i> <i> Scientists are tracking
something truly horrifying</i> <i> barreling towards Earth.</i> - The first thing you do
when you see a new phenomenon is you use computers
to simulate what happens into the future. <i> And as we run
the videotape forward,</i> <i> we begin to say to ourselves,</i> <i> "Oh, my God!"</i> <i> - It's a black hole.</i> A supermassive black hole
with a billion times the mass of the sun. <i> narrator:
Of all the objects in space,</i> <i> this lethal mass possesses</i> <i> the strongest
gravitational pull,</i> <i> earning its name.</i> <i> Because nothing,
not even light,</i> <i> can escape the grasp
of a black hole.</i> <i> Anything--
or anyone--</i> <i> that crosses
its outer edge--</i> <i> an invisible boundary known
as the event horizon--</i> <i> will never be seen again.</i> <i> The black hole
coming toward Earth</i> <i> has cruised
through the universe</i> <i> for billions of years,</i> <i> growing larger
as it swallows stars, planets,</i> <i> and everything else
in its path.</i> - Some people compare a black
hole to a celestial zombie. <i> It comes to life any time
something comes too close.</i> It grabs that object
in its clutches and never lets go. <i> - Every black hole
is capable</i> <i> of reanimating itself</i> <i> whenever it's in the vicinity
of matter.</i> So every black hole
has the capability to suddenly spring to life
as a truly vicious killer. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Scientists calculate
that in 24 hours,</i> <i> the black hole
will reach our planet.</i> <i> But people are already
beginning to feel its effects.</i> -<i> As the black hole
approaches,</i> we have kind of
a global warming on steroids. <i> narrator: The black hole's
gravitational force</i> <i>is so powerful that even though
it has not yet</i> <i> entered the solar system,</i> <i> it's pushing our planet</i> <i> closer to the heat
of the sun.</i> [yelling] -<i> Now it's Christmas
in New York</i> and everyone's hanging stockings
and putting up Christmas trees, yet it's 110 degrees outside. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: As the black hole
enters the outer solar system,</i> <i> people everywhere
notice an ominous sign</i> <i> that it will be arriving soon.</i> - [speaking foreign language] <i> narrator: A strange effect
called gravitational lensing.</i> - The black hole acts
like a lens that's placed in front of the distant
background stars and galaxies. And it distorts them
and it warps them. - You can think of it
as simply a cosmic lens. It's the universe's spyglass
in a way. -<i> It would be
extraordinarily unsettling</i> to the see
the familiar patterns in the night sky
warped and distorted <i> by an object that's filling
more and more of the horizon.</i> <i> narrator:
This is the first visual sign</i> <i> that the greatest disaster
in the history of mankind</i> <i> is upon us.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> As the black hole
moves through space,</i> <i> it hurls comets and asteroids</i> <i> in every direction,</i> <i> which serve as warnings
to people around the world</i> <i> that doomsday is near.</i> - Some of the asteroids
will go flying in toward the sun,
many away from the sun. But those flying toward
the inner solar system would start colliding,
in some cases, <i> with the planets</i> <i> and with the Moon.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> - The impact that occurs
to the Moon is devastating.</i> This isn't a quick, bang, done
kind of scenario. You're watching it
over a half hour. <i> Material is beginning
to fan out.</i> It's coming toward the Earth. <i> narrator: As people everywhere
look up into the sky,</i> <i> all they see is devastation.</i> - Watching the Moon
disintegrate in the night sky is an absolute
psychological effect. <i> You have cultures
based on the Moon.</i> <i> The Moon's our friend,
it causes the tides,</i> prevents things
from hitting us. Watching that being destroyed, it's an apocalypse
unto itself. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Black holes, like
the one heading toward Earth</i> <i> form when massive stars die.</i> <i> The remnants from the star
implode</i> <i> like an enormous building</i> <i> collapsing onto itself.</i> - A black hole is the result
of a gravitational collapse from a really big star, and the collapse
is so violent that the matter keeps collapsing
and collapsing and collapsing
until it forms a black hole. [explosion booms] <i> narrator:
All the material from the star</i> <i> is crushed down
to a small pinpoint.</i> <i> The fact that so much mass
is concentrated in one spot</i> <i> is what gives a black hole
enormously powerful</i> <i> and destructive
gravitational forces.</i> -<i> If you have enough material</i> crammed into
a relatively small volume, its own self gravity
will grow stronger and eventually
the gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light,
can escape. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Albert Einstein
first predicted</i> <i> the existence of black holes
in 1916,</i> <i>when he presented his equations
of general relativity.</i> <i> Although the first one</i> <i> wasn't spotted until 1971.</i> <i> Now scientists say
millions of them exist</i> <i> throughout the galaxy</i> <i> and some of them
move rapidly through space.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> We used to think
that black holes</i> were stationary,
but we were shocked-- shocked to find
that there are rogue black holes that wander
across the galaxy. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: As the black hole
moves closer to Earth,</i> <i> its gravity continues
to send asteroids</i> <i> crashing into the planet.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> A meteor streaks through
the sky over Barcelona.</i> <i> ♪ </i> [explosion booms] <i> - You're seeing
a flash of light.</i> Then a big, hot, expanding
balloon of gas. Then buildings
and trees shaking <i> because of
the seismic activity.</i> <i> Then debris being thrown
all over the place.</i> [screaming] <i> narrator: This two-million
pound iron meteorite</i> <i> vaporizes the area
around its impact site,</i> [explosion booms] <i> Instantly killing
anyone in its path.</i> [explosion booms] <i> The crash is as powerful
as the atomic bomb</i> <i> dropped on Hiroshima, Japan,
in 1945.</i> <i> And like a nuclear blast,</i> <i> a shock wave radiates out</i> <i> in every direction.</i> <i> ♪ </i> - If you're farther
than a couple of miles away from ground zero,
it would be silent, <i> is one of
the strangest things,</i> <i> because the light takes a much
shorter time</i> <i> to travel to you
than the sound does.</i> <i> One of the greatest
threats to you</i> is actually the shock wave,
propelling debris, blowing out windows
and shards of glass, <i> which are deadly
at those speeds and pressures.</i> So something as simple
as duck and cover from the Cold War
is actually very relevant. [yelling] <i> ♪ </i> [explosion booms,
screaming] <i> narrator: As the first
shock wave passes overhead,</i> <i> people just outside
of the meteor impact site</i> <i> are safe, for now.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> But the black hole
has only just started</i> <i> to wreak havoc
on planet Earth.</i> <i> Can mankind survive?</i> [explosion booms] - This is devastation
from space that there's nothing
you can do about. <i> [intense music]</i> <i> narrator: A black hole--</i> <i> the remnants of a dead star</i> <i> with a gravitational force
so strong</i> <i> that nothing can escape
its clutches--</i> <i> is heading straight towards
planet Earth.</i> <i> Can you survive?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> As it enters
the solar system,</i> <i> the black hole's immense power</i> <i> has already unleashed
devastation on mankind,</i> <i> hurling meteors
that destroyed the Moon</i> <i> and devastated cities
across the globe.</i> [explosion booms] <i> People across the world
struggle to cope</i> <i> with these unprecedented
disasters,</i> <i> and fear what catastrophe
will strike next.</i> - Everyone, rightly so,
is wondering "What can we do?
What's the next step? How do we get through this?" <i> narrator: The scientists
who discovered the black hole</i> <i> realize that nothing
can alter its path.</i> -<i>
we're gonna deflect it,</i> <i> There's no way</i> <i> move it out of the way.</i> <i> It's not like an asteroid</i> where you could park
a spacecraft near it and gravitationally
pull on it or explode a bomb next to it and deflect a little bit. <i> It's just too massive.</i> <i> narrator: As the black hole
moves closer to our planet...</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> People everywhere
see something extraordinary</i> <i> The photon sphere.</i> <i> A place where gravity
is so strong</i> <i> that light travels in circles
around the black hole,</i> <i> filling the sky with streams
of red and green light,</i> <i> known as auroras.</i> -<i> What anyone on the surface
of Earth would see,</i> looking at the photon sphere would be an incomprehensible,
perhaps, display of half imagery, <i> a light show, radiation.</i> I mean, this would be something
that's almost impossible to describe. <i> The effect this would have
on the Earth</i> <i> is the radiation
and the light energy</i> hitting the atmosphere
would cause aurora that would light up all over, <i> which is essentially
turning the atmosphere</i> <i> into a sort of
florescent bulb.</i> <i> narrator: The black hole
can theoretically bend</i> <i> and distort light</i> <i> in ways that change
reality itself.</i> -<i> Traveling through
the photon sphere</i> <i> you have smaller
black holes.</i> If you look forward
you can eventually see the back of your head. And that's because
the photons, which are these light waves
and particles, <i>travel in these circular orbits
around the black hole.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: These unearthly
images flash across</i> <i> people's eyes
just for a moment</i> <i> as the Earth passes through
the photon sphere.</i> <i> And then they're gone.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> With people enduring</i> <i> unprecedented disasters
everywhere,</i> <i> some of America's military
and political elite</i> <i> gather in Cold War-era
nuclear bomb-proof bunkers...</i> [alarm blaring] <i> Like Colorado's
Cheyenne Mountain,</i> <i> which is buried under
2,000 feet of granite.</i> <i>- For reasons that are obvious
in the context of the Cold War,</i> <i> the U.S. military
set up their strategic defense</i> <i> in Cheyenne Mountain.</i> <i> And with good reason.</i> <i> The Earth naturally</i> cooked these very tough rocks that would naturally withstand
the direct impact of a nuclear weapon
or several. <i> And it would make
a robust outpost</i> <i> for humanity to try and set up
a last stand on Earth.</i> <i> narrator: On what may be
the last day for humanity,</i> <i> the sun--fittingly--
does not rise.</i> <i> It's dark across
the entire planet.</i> -<i> The sky becomes
profoundly altered</i> and the black hole itself
is filling more and more of the field of view. <i> narrator: As the Earth nears
the black hole,</i> <i> its intense gravity starts
sucking the sun's light</i> <i> towards it,
and away from the Earth.</i> <i> ♪ </i> - As the Earth
is drawn ever closer to this black hole,
it's like entering a cave and there's only
darkness within. <i> narrator:
Light from the stars,</i> <i> the other planets, and the sun</i> <i> shrinks to a single,
small point in the sky.</i> [indistinct chatter] - The farther in we go,
if you were to turn around and look in the opposite
direction from Earth, you'd see a diminishing view
of the rest of the universe, receding and getting more warped <i> as it traveled away.</i> - We're enveloped
in this profound darkness that surrounds us. <i> narrator: Traveling at more
than a million miles an hour,</i> <i> the event horizon--</i> <i> the invisible boundary
of the black hole--</i> <i> closes in on our planet.</i> <i> And once the threshold
is crossed,</i> <i> there's no escape.</i> <i> - Crossing an event horizon,
is similar</i> <i> to going over Niagara Falls.</i> Imagine that
you're in a boat and you know
that the falls are coming, because the water gets faster
and faster. And before you hit the edge,
there's still a possibility of you paddling hard enough
to get to the side. <i> However, once you go over
the edge of the falls,</i> <i> there's no going back.</i> <i> You can't paddle hard enough
to get you back up the falls</i> <i> and to safety.</i> <i> Niagara Falls is very similar</i> <i> to the event horizon
of a black hole.</i> <i> Once you cross
the event horizon,</i> there's no possible way
to escape. - If you get so close
to a black hole that you're in the grip
of the gravitational field, then no matter what you do, you're doomed to fall into
the black hole. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: As the black hole's
gravitational forces</i> <i> strengthen their grip
on the Earth...</i> [explosion booms] <i> Does humanity have any chance
of survival?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: In 1916,</i> <i>Albert Einstein first predicted</i> <i> the existence
of black holes--</i> <i> objects from space
that suck in</i> <i> and destroy
everything in their path.</i> <i> If we came in contact
with a black hole today,</i> [alarm blaring] <i> is there any way to survive?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> For the last 24 hours,</i> <i> people around the world</i> <i> have been watching in horror</i> <i> as a supermassive black hole
speeds toward Earth.</i> <i> It has already unleashed
apocalyptic light shows,</i> <i> scorching temperatures,</i> <i> and massive asteroids</i> <i> that have turned the Moon
to dust.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> Now, our planet is about
to pass through</i> <i> its event horizon--</i> <i> the outer boundary
of the black hole,</i> <i> where gravity becomes
so powerful</i> <i> that nothing can escape.</i> - We reach the event horizon, which is the very literal
point of no return. <i> ♪ </i> -<i> Nobody on Earth is safe</i> or secure once the event horizon of a supermassive black hole
has been breached. But for a while, <i> life would go on
on the surface of the Earth.</i> <i> narrator: As the Earth
finally passes through</i> <i> the event horizon,</i> <i> it's majestic.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> Instead of a big bang,</i> <i> there is light.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> Once you've crossed
the event horizon</i> of the black hole,
it's now possible for you to see the light
that's inside that can't escape
from the event horizon. -<i>
strange light effects</i> <i> You'll notice</i> like the light from stars coming
in from some weird angle and flashing into your eyes and other weird effects
like this. <i> narrator: This cosmic
light show may be amazing,</i> <i> but it's also confirmation</i> <i> that our planet has entered
the black hole</i> <i> and now we're being
pulled closer</i> <i> to the doomsday point
at its center,</i> <i> known as the singularity.</i> - The singularity is the point where all of the mass
of the star collapsed into. -<i> As the Earth approaches
the singularity,</i> <i> the black hole's gravity
is stronger</i> on one side of the Earth
than the other. And so because of
that difference in strength of gravity, <i> there is a stretching
and a squeezing effect</i> <i>that gets applied to the Earth.</i> <i> narrator: The black hole's
gravitational forces</i> <i> are so strong</i> <i> they literally start
pulling our planet apart.</i> [rumbling] [car alarm blaring] -<i> Earthquakes are happening
on orientations</i> that don't appear to make
any sense. They're not near coastal
boundaries or subduction zones, places where you'd expect
plates to collide and start to
cause earthquakes, or stretch
and cause earthquakes. <i> [intense music]</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> Unlike normal earthquakes,
which build up</i> and then dissipate,
these earthquakes are getting stronger and stronger
and stronger. [glass shattering] - <i> You feel that?</i> <i> narrator: These enormously
powerful earthquakes</i> <i> strike everywhere.</i> <i> From Los Angeles</i> <i> to New York and Miami,</i> <i> as well as Australia,
Africa,</i> <i> and across Asia.</i> -<i> As the earthquakes
are reaching magnitudes</i> seven, eight, nine--
when they start to impinge upon the size
of historical massive earthquakes,
then infrastructure like dams start to fail. [explosion booming] <i> And so you would see
dams not just</i> <i> in seismically active areas,</i> <i> but dams across the world fail</i> <i> and the water behind them
would start to rush down</i> through the river valleys. <i> ♪ </i> <i> - The chaos never stops.</i> It just keeps going
until everything is ripped apart
and torn asunder. [rumbling] <i> ♪ </i> <i> It's absolutely terrifying
to think</i> <i> that a population that's never
dealt with this before</i> <i> all of a sudden
is being reduced to rubble.</i> <i> narrator:
For countless millions,</i> <i> there is
nowhere to run or hide.</i> <i> As the death toll mounts,</i> <i> the destruction
only gets worse,</i> <i> as ocean levels rise
across the planet.</i> <i> ♪</i> ♪ - This principle is no different
from the Moon affecting the tides
on the Earth. <i> The Moon makes a small pull
on our oceans</i> <i> from 200-some-odd thousand
miles away.</i> The supermassive black hole
is so big that the Earth can start to feel
gravitational effects. <i> And that's just an indicator
of how much bigger</i> a supermassive black hole is
than the Moon. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator:
Near Cairo, Egypt,</i> <i> a ship captain is navigating
a vessel up the Nile River,</i> <i> when he spies something
incredible on the horizon.</i> <i> [dramatic music]</i> - [speaking foreign language] <i> ♪ </i> - <i> You're seeing a mound of watr
on the horizon</i> and as it approaches, the entire
level of the water is rising. And this has the effect
of carrying water to areas that have never
seen water before in that way. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: The black hole's
gravity is so powerful</i> <i> that it is pulling water
against the normal current,</i> <i> as if the waves
are going uphill.</i> <i> ♪ </i> [water crashing] <i> ♪ </i> - It's gathering speed
and pressure because you are forcing
all of the water into a smaller
and smaller channel. It's like putting
a nozzle on a hose. <i> As that wave comes in,
it's gathering speed,</i> gathering pressure,
and it's beginning to destroy everything that's in its way. [water rushing] <i> narrator: The black hole's
gravity is now</i> <i> about a thousand times
more powerful than the Moon's.</i> <i> It pulls waves
across the oceans</i> <i>that are larger than the world </i>
has ever seen, and they smash ashore with incredible
destructive power. -<i> For the three billion people
that live on the coast</i> <i>of whatever country they're in,</i> it's absolute chaos. The water is washing
into their homes and taking everything away. <i> You've got massive waves.</i> <i> The ocean will never
be the same again.</i> <i> To me and to many others,</i> that is the moment
where I snap. <i> I am going to die,</i> <i> the Earth is going to
be destroyed.</i> <i> It's scarier than hell.</i> <i> narrator:
While the few survivors</i> <i> along the world's coastlines
have watched</i> <i> their homes,
their neighbors,</i> <i> and even their families
washed away...</i> Other parts of the planet
are left without water. - In some coastal regions, you'd see water flowing away and leaving dry land
where there used to be an ocean. <i> What's going on is that
as with the tides on Earth</i> raised by the Moon,
some areas have more water. That's where you have
high tide. And other areas have
less water. That's where you
have low tide. <i> But with a black hole
pulling on the water,</i> <i> the effects
would become extreme.</i> <i> And some places
would have really deep water</i> and other places would have
a huge deficit of water. In fact, they might be
completely dry. -<i>
the black hole is able to have</i> <i> The fact that</i> such dramatic effects
really illustrates just how insignificant
the Earth is to these processes. It's like the Earth
is a grain of sand on a beach, being flung by a hurricane <i> that marches
over the top of it.</i> <i> narrator: As the Earth
is pulled closer</i> <i> to the singularity--</i> <i> the black hole's
lethal center--</i> <i> will it wipe out civilization
as we know it?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator:
It's been 17 minutes</i> <i> since a black hole</i> <i> a billion times more massive
than our sun</i> <i> gobbled up the Earth.</i> [crashing] <i> And now the black hole's
powerful gravity</i> <i> is stirring up
geological forces</i> <i> that are ripping the planet
apart.</i> <i> Can any of us survive?</i> - Ultimately, the people wiped
out first by the effects of the Earth being drawn closer
to the black hole are the nearly
three billion people who live in coastal areas. <i> narrator: Enormous tsunamis
have destroyed Cairo,</i> <i> Miami, and other cities</i> <i> that lie along
rivers and oceans...</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> While massive earthquakes...</i>
[car alarm blaring] <i> Have quickly spread
across the globe.</i> <i> [rumbling, screaming]</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> This unprecedented
geological activity</i> <i> has opened up gashes
on the Earth's surface,</i> <i> that allow gas,
molten lava,</i> <i> and rock,
deep inside the Earth</i> <i> to blast through
the surface.</i> <i> In Chicago,</i> <i> citizens experience
a kimberlite pipe eruption--</i> [explosions booming] <i> Something that hasn't
happened on Earth</i> <i> in 30 million years.</i> - Kimberlite pipe
eruptions emerge from the deep mantle
of the Earth and as they push
their way up, through the solid rock
of the crust... [explosion booms] <i> They breach the surface
faster than a supersonic jet,</i> <i> leading to an explosion...</i> [explosion booms] <i> Seen from a few miles away</i> <i> that would look quite a bit
like a nuclear explosion.</i> - It's like uncorking
a champagne bottle. The trapped gases within,
they're trying to escape and they can't,
and it causes an explosion. [explosions boom] - Immediately, all of this
burning hot interior of the Earth is blowing out
through a hole. <i> Everything around it
is flattened.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: The immense volcanic
blasts and earthquakes...</i> <i> Sever one of the last links</i> <i> between survivors
in search of information</i> <i> about what is going on.</i> <i> With satellites long since
destroyed,</i> <i> people have relied
on undersea cables,</i> <i> which carry 99% of all
transoceanic Internet traffic,</i> <i> to communicate with the rest
of the world.</i> -<i> Traffic on the Internet,</i> the physical infrastructure,
is supported by cables that lie on
the ocean's surfaces. These cables carry extraordinary
amounts of information-- terabits per second. And as they're severed... [rumbling] <i> ♪ </i> <i> The Internet quickly goes dark</i> <i> and finally goes dead.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator:
For those still alive,</i> <i> survival will now be
even more challenging.</i> <i> - There are reports
of earthquakes happening</i> <i> all across the country--</i> <i> narrator: The only way to
communicate over long distances</i> <i> and find out
the fate of loved ones</i> <i> is by radio,</i> <i> and even that is a struggle.</i> [radio static] - The atmosphere will change, impacting the way radio works. We can't talk as far, we can't talk as long, there will be more static. -<i> It would be very,
very difficult</i> to communicate
over long distances. -<i> Most people get their news
via television or radio.</i> <i> If we don't have
a satellite network</i> and if we don't have
any sort of terrestrial radio that's working,
we're not going to be able to know what's going on
on this planet. [rumbling] - The disruption caused by
the increasing seismic activity <i> is catastrophic
to modern society.</i> [rumbling] <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: As the Earth comes
within a few minutes</i> <i> of the black hole's center--
the singularity--</i> <i> gravity begins sucking the air
off our planet.</i> <i> It becomes harder
and harder to breathe.</i> <i> People everywhere
start suffocating.</i> <i> ♪</i> ♪ - The black hole's
gravitational pull on the air is starting to dominate
over Earth's gravitational pull. <i> So you've got these hurricane
and gale force winds</i> and the air's just being sucked
toward the black hole. - Anything outdoors
is absolutely unsurvivable as these winds kick in. <i> It's a sandstorm
and a hurricane</i> <i> all warped together,</i> <i> with a force that's far larger
than has been experienced.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Only those who have
access to</i> oxygen, <i> like the scientists
at the Telescope Array</i> <i> in New Mexico,
can survive much longer.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> Or those in pressurized
environments deep underground,</i> <i> like Colorado's
Cheyenne Mountain,</i> <i> where some of America's
political and military leaders</i> <i> have gathered.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> Hardened government
facilities,</i> <i> like Cheyenne Mountain,
are pressurized.</i> <i> They have their own power.</i> <i> If you go there,
it will be fine</i> for a short amount of time. <i> But the Earth itself
is being ripped apart.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: As the black hole's
gravitational forces</i> <i> now pull
the Earth's atmosphere</i> <i> at the speed of sound,</i> <i> our planet's surface</i> <i> becomes a flaming hellscape.</i> - If air reaches a velocity and a density <i> to the point where
it begins to heat up,</i> the air rushing past you will be on fire. [flames crackling] <i> narrator: As the world's
population is reduced</i> <i> to a few
hundred thousand people,</i> <i> can the last vestiges
of humanity hold out</i> <i>against the immense destructive
powers of the black hole?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Space scientists
first detected</i> <i> a black hole in 1971.</i> <i> Now, the Earth has been
swallowed by one.</i> <i> Is there anyone, anywhere,</i> <i> who can survive?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> As gravitational forces
pull our planet closer</i> <i> to the singularity--</i> <i> the black hole's
lethal core--</i> <i> the devastation
has been massive.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> Earthquakes,
tsunamis,</i> <i> hurricane force winds,</i> <i> and volcanic eruptions,</i> <i> the likes of which mankind
has never experienced.</i> [explosion booms] - The black hole's gravity
is pulling on different parts of the Earth
by different amounts and that's causing a stretching
of the different parts <i> of Earth's crust.</i> Earth's shape
is actually being altered by the gravity of
the black hole. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Though no one is
outside to see it,</i> <i> the black hole's
intense gravity</i> <i> is playing new tricks
with light itself.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> Amongst the most dramatic
effects of the Earth</i> being drawn toward
the black hole is not only the destruction
of the Earth, but also what one on Earth
might be seeing. <i> narrator: Gravity coming from
the singularity</i> <i> is yanking light around
just as violently</i> <i> as the Earth,
so it's acting in ways</i> <i> we've never seen.</i> -<i> You'd see light
that's coming in</i> <i> a little bit blue-shifted.</i> <i> So things go bluer
or more purple,</i> whereas the edges
of your vision would be redder. So this, together,
would form these weird, kind of, rainbow patterns. <i> narrator: But very few
of the world's 7 billion people</i> <i> are left to see
the devastation.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> Without oxygen,</i> <i> animals, plants,
and most humans</i> <i> are dead.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i>
gets peeled away.</i> <i> The atmosphere</i> <i> Anything on the surface
of the planet,</i> <i> or in the air, dies,</i> unless it can adapt or get somehow underground
into a pressurized vessel. The stuff that requires
less oxygen will live a little bit longer. But ultimately,
anything that requires the atmosphere to breathe, <i> will die.</i> <i> narrator:
Without oxygen,</i> <i> animals, plants,
and most humans are dead.</i> <i> With the Earth close
to the singularity,</i> <i> buildings,
bridges,</i> <i> and then
the Earth's surface itself</i> <i> violently buckles.</i> <i> The black hole's gravity
is now so strong</i> <i> that it can bend, twist,
or tear our planet</i> <i> like a sheet of paper.</i> <i> ♪ </i> -<i> The gravitational pressure
is so great</i> that the continents themselves
begin to crumble. <i> The crust and the mantle
of the Earth</i> <i> are cracking
under the pressure.</i> -<i> Relatively quickly,</i> the previously familiar shapes of the continents and oceans
start changing <i> until they're unrecognizable.</i> <i> ♪ </i> - At this point,
the Earth is being stretched to such a degree,
it's physically distended. <i> And it finally
just gives way.</i> <i> And there's such an amount
of heat built up,</i> that when the crust
starts to break up, you'd have magma
all over the place. <i> ♪ </i> - <i> When it's being ripped apart,</i> <i>those kind of geologic events--</i> <i> volcanoes, earthquakes--</i> everything is going
to be going off at once. The absolute, utter, concise destruction
of the planet on a cosmological scale. <i> narrator:
With most of humanity--</i> <i> more than 7 billion
people dead--</i> <i> magma flows into the oceans
and begins</i> <i> to boil all the water
on the planet,</i> <i> killing most sea life.</i> <i> The destruction of the Earth
continues,</i> <i> relentlessly.</i> <i> - The continental rock will be
floating in an expanding,</i> <i> taffy-like sea of lava.</i> The entire scene
will be extremely bright, the entire scene will
be extremely violent, and the entire scene will be
almost completely unsurvivable unless you're in
a very well insulated and protected spot. - <i> The crust of the Earth
is very heated,</i> and you might end up
with rafts, essentially, of crustal material
that survive for a while as the surface of the planet
becomes molten. <i> ♪ </i> <i> But eventually it would all
start to get mixed together.</i> And you are definitely
in unsurvivable territory if you are unlucky enough to be
on the surface of the Earth. <i> ♪ </i> -<i> The entire Earth
is bathed in a heat.</i> <i> And it's really something</i> that is almost hard to imagine. <i> narrator:
The Earth as we know it</i> <i> is being ripped apart</i> <i> and civilization
has been decimated.</i> <i> Is there any hope
for the future of mankind? </i> [explosion booms] <i> narrator: 30 brutal,
devastating minutes</i> <i> after our planet
was sucked into a black hole,</i> <i>it's nearing the doomsday point
at its lethal center--</i> <i> the singularity.</i> <i> And extraordinarily powerful
gravitational forces</i> <i> start ripping the Earth
to pieces.</i> <i> - The planet turns into
a hellscape.</i> Every minute piece of crust and mantle begins to break apart. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Some of the last
remaining people on Earth</i> <i> are America's political
and military leaders,</i> <i> locked inside the reinforced
Cold War bunker</i> <i> under Colorado's
Cheyenne Mountain.</i> [rumbling] [rumbling intensifies] <i> But they stand little chance</i> <i> against the black hole.</i> -<i> If Cheyenne Mountain manages
to break free</i> <i> of the fiery stream of debris</i> <i> that the Earth has become,</i> then as you fall towards
the singularity, you'll experience a period
of weightlessness. <i> There would be a period</i> <i> where you're now
free from the Earth.</i> The Earth has been destroyed, and so you're in, literally,
a freely falling stream <i>of debris that's heading toward
the singularity.</i> <i> narrator: Scientists call this
deadly gravitational stream</i> <i> spaghettification.</i> <i> - Objects become stretched.</i> So a round object
becomes a long piece of spaghetti-like substance, hence the term
spaghettification. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator:
The last humans are now gone--</i> <i> spaghettified.</i> <i> But this is not the end</i> <i> of the black hole's assault.</i> -<i> As the material
that had been the Earth</i> <i> is drawn ever closer</i> to the core of this black hole, what happens is the strength of
gravity goes up so quickly that you can start to rip apart
not just a planet into rubble, <i> but you rip apart
the rubble into dust,</i> <i>and then you rip apart the dust
into molecules,</i> the molecules into atoms,
and then it's possible you even rip the atoms apart into subnuclear particles. After the supermassive
black hole has passed through our portion of the Milky Way, <i> where there once was
our solar system</i> is only a cleared lane,
where not even interstellar dust remains. <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator: Planet Earth
has been reduced to nothing.</i> <i> But there is a chance
that something of humanity</i> <i> has survived.</i> - It's conceivable that
one or more of the spacecraft that humans have sent
beyond the distant planets <i> wouldn't get gobbled up
by the black hole,</i> would miraculously
be on a trajectory that allows it
to escape the black hole. <i> ♪ </i> <i> - These space probes contain</i> <i> microscopic hitchhikers.</i> We know that microbes
can be extraordinarily hardy even in the harsh conditions
of space. - <i> And maybe, just maybe,</i> <i> if this landed on a planet</i> around a distant star
and the conditions were right, that life would come out
of hibernation <i> and that could actually
seed life on another world,</i> <i> And in that way, maybe a piece
of Earth could survive.</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> narrator:
There's also another theory,</i> <i> one that bodes much better</i> <i> for the survival of mankind.</i> <i> Albert Einstein--
one of the most influential</i> <i> scientists in history--</i> <i> suggested
an astounding possibility.</i> <i> His equations indicated
that Earth could slip through</i> <i> a black hole unscathed,</i> <i> into a parallel universe.</i> -<i> If you take a look
at Einstein's equations,</i> you realize that if
a black hole is spinning, spinning rapidly, and that's
what we see in outer space. All black holes
are spinning very rapidly. <i> We see that the singularity's
actually a ring,</i> <i> not a dot at all.</i> <i> narrator: Einstein's equations
predict the Earth</i> <i> might be able
to enter the ring.</i> - <i> If you fall through the ring,</i> you actually don't die. You're not spaghettified.
You can actually go right through the ring. <i> Then the question is,
"Well,</i> <i> where does this lead to?"</i> <i> The mathematics says
there's a parallel universe</i> <i> on the other side
of a black hole.</i> -<i> This is actually based on
real science research</i> conducted in the mid to late
20th century. And the idea is,
a singularity warps space so dramatically
that it may actually connect <i> to otherwise
totally unconnected portions</i> <i> of the universe.</i> <i> narrator:
It's a question that scientists</i> <i> around the world
have debated for decades.</i> <i> Will an encounter
with a black hole</i> <i> lead to a new beginning
for Earth</i> <i> in a parallel universe...</i> <i> Or will it trigger
the end of the world?</i> <i> ♪ </i> <i> It's a question that science</i> <i> cannot yet answer.</i> -<i> The final encounter
with the singularity,</i> we don't know
how that unfolds. Singularity by definition,
right now, is a location where
the laws of physics as we currently understand them
break down. <i> ♪ </i> -<i> In all likelihood, however,</i> the environment is so
destructive and so powerful that the Earth would be
completely obliterated. <i> ♪ </i> -<i> More likely, for us,</i> the black hole
is the end of space, the end of time, the end of everything.