Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: I. Orbiting Probes

@misc{gao2026testing,
  title = {{Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: I. Orbiting Probes}},
  author = {Leda Gao and Cosimo Bambi and Yi Fan and Temurbek Mirzaev and Abdurakhmon Nosirov and Andrea Santangelo},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.19176},
  eprint = {2605.19176},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19176},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: I. Orbiting Probes
AU  - Leda Gao
AU  - Cosimo Bambi
AU  - Yi Fan
AU  - Temurbek Mirzaev
AU  - Abdurakhmon Nosirov
AU  - Andrea Santangelo
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/21
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.19176
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19176
AB  - Recently, we showed that the possibility of an interstellar mission to the closest black hole, while highly speculative and extremely challenging, is not completely unrealistic within the next few decades. Since such a mission might last around a century and require significant financial and human resources, it is crucial to assess whether it can truly study black holes and test General Relativity at levels unattainable by observational facilities in the Solar System for many years. In this manuscript, we assume the capability to decelerate the spacecraft and present a preliminary study of how probes orbiting a black hole could test the nature of the compact object.
ER  -