Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: II. Flyby Probes
Abstract
Recently, we demonstrated that while an interstellar mission to the nearest black hole remains highly speculative and extraordinarily challenging, it is not entirely implausible within the coming decades. Given that such a mission would likely take about a hundred years and require substantial financial and human investment, it is essential to assess whether it could investigate black holes and test General Relativity to a degree that cannot be achieved by Solar System observatories for the foreseeable future. In Paper I, we assumed the capability to decelerate the spacecraft and presented a preliminary study of how orbiting probes could test the nature of the compact object. In this second paper, we study how the black hole can be tested without decelerating the spacecraft, using flyby probes.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{fan2026testing,
title = {{Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: II. Flyby Probes}},
author = {Yi Fan and Cosimo Bambi and Leda Gao and Abdurakhmon Nosirov and Andrea Santangelo},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.09077},
eprint = {2607.09077},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.09077},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Testing Black Holes with Interstellar Missions: II. Flyby Probes
AU - Yi Fan
AU - Cosimo Bambi
AU - Leda Gao
AU - Abdurakhmon Nosirov
AU - Andrea Santangelo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.09077
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.09077
AB - Recently, we demonstrated that while an interstellar mission to the nearest black hole remains highly speculative and extraordinarily challenging, it is not entirely implausible within the coming decades. Given that such a mission would likely take about a hundred years and require substantial financial and human investment, it is essential to assess whether it could investigate black holes and test General Relativity to a degree that cannot be achieved by Solar System observatories for the foreseeable future. In Paper I, we assumed the capability to decelerate the spacecraft and presented a preliminary study of how orbiting probes could test the nature of the compact object. In this second paper, we study how the black hole can be tested without decelerating the spacecraft, using flyby probes.
ER -