When the First Human Astronaut Was About to Land on Mars, Did She Know She Would Arrive at a Black Hole?
Chang-Geng Zhang, newly appointed as an associate professor of astronomy, received shocking news during her routine physical: lung cancer, confirmed by two follow-up examinations. At this difficult moment, she learned through her colleague Powell U.'s social media that a crewed mission to Mars was recruiting a payload scientist. She applied without much hope. To her surprise, she was selected to become the first human to travel solo to the Red Planet.
During the Mars landing procedure, her spacecraft suddenly began spinning uncontrollably. Chang-Geng lost consciousness and all contact with Earth. Despite global monitoring efforts, neither Chang-Geng nor her spacecraft could be detected on Mars.
What she never expected was that she had entered a black hole! Conventional wisdom holds that anything crossing a black hole's event horizon would be torn apart. How did she enter the black hole unharmed? What lies within? Could it be another world entirely?