Popular Recordings Featuring a Black Hole

'To the Quasar' by Arjen Lucassen (2000)

In 2000, Dutch musician Arjen Lucassen released the progressive metal album "Universal Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator," which features the odyssey of the last human being from Mars to quasars, pulsars, and wormholes. The second movement of the song "To the Quasar" is about the first confirmed quasar, 3c273. In the following track, "Into the Black Hole," the protagonist journeys into 3c273 in hopes that it will transport him through the universe.

The Science

Traveling through a black hole is a popular concept in science fiction (and, apparently, progressive metal), but it just doesn't work. Anything that enters a black hole is eventually pulled apart by the tidal forces, then its atoms are crushed into a new form of existence as they reach the overpowering gravitational field of the singularity.

'Cygnus X-1' by Rush (1977)

From the Canadian power trio's album A Farewell to Kings:

In the constellation of Cygnus

There lurks a mysterious, invisible force

The Black Hole

Of Cygnus X-1

Six Stars of the Northern Cross

In mourning for their sister's loss

In a final flash of glory

Nevermore to grace the night....

Invisible

To telescopic eye

Infinity

The star that would not die

All who dare

To cross her course

Are swallowed by

A fearsome force

Through the void

To be destroyed

Or is there something more?

Atomized -- at the core

Or through the Astral Door --

To soar....

Words by Neil Peart

Bob & Doug MacKenzie's 'Black Holes' (1981)

From the Great White North, a different take on black holes:

Bob: Well, that's 'cause of Star Trek.

Editor's note: Astronomers have not confirmed this theory.