Nasa video simulates what it's like to travel into a black hole

US space agency, Nasa, has released a new video simulation taking the viewer inside a black hole.

Black holes feature frequently in sci-fi stories, shows and films. Now, using a powerful computer, Nasa has modelled what it might look like when travelling inside one in real life.

In the clip, a camera moves towards a black hole, which has a huge glowing ring around it. This disk is caused by gas, as well as the light that orbits it.

It took five days for Nasa to make the simulation on a supercomputer, called Discover, a process they say would have taken 10 years on an everyday laptop.

The glowing structures shown around the black hole simulation are called photon rings

There are lots of amazing effects happening in the video, with space and stars appearing to bend.

The clip is sped up to show what would be happening at a faster pace - but in the black hole, time itself would also distort.

According to Nasa, if an astronaut travelled to a black hole on a 6-hour round trip, escaping before they hit the point of no return, they would return to their main ship 36 minutes younger than their crewmates!

That's because time passes more slowly near a strong gravitational source such as a black hole and when travelling at the speed of light.

What is a black hole?

Black holes are left behind when supernovas - huge stars with the brightness of 10 billion suns - come to the end of their life.

When the centre of a very big star collapses into itself black holes are made.

Despite looking like they have nothing inside, black holes are actually packed full of matter. The gravity is so strong inside these dense black holes that it pulls everything towards it, including light itself!

Because light cannot get out they are invisible, or completely black, which is where the name comes from.