A Plunge into the Chasm: Surviving Tidal Effects in Kerr Spacetime
We investigate the fate of an observer falling towards a Kerr black hole. The tidal forces are computed for arbitrary trajectories of an observer, and we specify them along the polar axis in order to remain as far as possible from the ring-shaped singularity. Our analysis shows that an observer is not tidally disrupted during the fall provided that the black hole mass exceeds a critical value, which depends on its spin. In practice, any supermassive black hole represents a suitable candidate to allow an observer to traverse the black hole without severe deformation. In contrast, stellar-mass rotating black holes do not satisfy the mass condition and are expected to subject the observer to extreme tidal forces leading to its destruction during the plunge.