Stargate: SG-1 'A Matter of Time' (1998)
SG-10, a team of explorers from Earth, is studying a planet that orbits a star in a binary system when the star’s companion suddenly implodes to form a black hole. As the black hole’s gravity pulls the planet toward it, the team tries to escape through the Stargate, a device that creates an artificial wormhole that connects to Earth. Time dilation effects slow SG-10’s movements relative to Earth, however, making escape impossible. Worse, the black hole’s gravitational field “traps” one end of the wormhole, making it impossible to disengage the Stargate and threatening the destruction of Earth.
The Science
This episode includes some excellent animation of a black hole accreting matter from its bloated companion star, as well as spot-on explanations of time dilation, tidal gravity, and other effects of a black hole.
There are a few goofs, though.
First, the episode shows a small star simply collapsing to form a black hole, which cannot happen. A black hole forms from the collapse of the core of a massive star, which is accompanied by the destruction of the star’s outer layers.
And second, after a star collapses to form a black hole, its gravitational effect over a long distance doesn’t get stronger. If our Sun collapsed, for example, Earth would feel no additional tug toward it. Since the planet the team was exploring was far away from the original star, it would have felt no extra tug after the star collapsed to form the black hole.
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