A lot of things in the universe defy explanation: Life, quantum particles, Joan Rivers’ face. But perhaps the most mysterious thing we’ve encountered is the black hole.

Black holes are places in the universe where the laws of physics, uh, break. So much matter occupies so little space, that spacetime says, “fuck it,” and literally collapses in on itself.

Since space is like a fabric, it’s capable of warping. Think of it like a taut paper towel. If you spread a few pounds of marbles (representing cosmic masses) evenly over its surface, the paper towel will support their weight (if not dipping slightly). However, if you remove the marbles and place one really heavy one at the center of the paper towel, it will rip a hole in it and fall through. The hole represents the black hole. Put the regular marbles back on the paper towel and they’ll eventually fall into oblivion, joining their larger friend.

Now that you have a very childlike hold on the concept, let’s go even further. Black holes are made of two parts: a singularity and an event horizon. The singularity is a point in space where smallness and density are infinite. Mindfuck much? It’s so tiny that it occupies no space at all, yet so massive that its gravitational pull is incalculable. Mathematics simply fails us. Actually, that’s the very definition of a singularity.

The event horizon is an invisible bubble that surrounds the singularity. Here, space starts warping so bad, that the pull of gravity becomes faster than the speed of light. And since the speed of light is — normally — the cosmological speed limit, absolutely nothing can escape the event horizon once crossing through it. It marks the point of no return. 

This should be impossible. But not so in black holes. And that fact opens the door to crazy shit. Like time travel.

Quick crash course on traveling through time: Time is relative. Meaning, the faster you go, the slower your clock ticks relative to someone standing still. So, astronauts spinning around the earth at 300 miles per second age slower than the rest of us (thus traveling through time quicker — albeit at a rather negligible rate). Now, if you travel near the speed of light, time (for you) speeds up exponentially. If you travel for 10 years at the speed of light, your friends and relatives would be dead by the time you slowed down to Earth speed. So if you ever do that, take loved ones with you.

Now that you understand how time travel works, let’s fly just to the borderline of a black hole — the event horizon. We’ve brought along our space cat, Binks, who’s graciously volunteered to venture into the black hole.

As we stay at a good safe distance from the event horizon, we jettison Binks from our spacecraft towards the black hole. As Binks approaches the event horizon, however, something strange happens from our perspective. Binks appears to slow down, and eventually, stop moving altogether, as if stuck in time.

We wait and wait and wait in eager anticipation of Binks becoming kitty spaghetti, but it never happens. So we get bored and fly back to Earth and perform other sordid feline experiments.

But from Binks’ point of view, a different story plays out. As he crosses over the event horizon, he sees our spaceship disappear. Literally, vanish. Then, all alone, he becomes one with the singularity.

What just happened was time travel from two different perspectives. In one, we saw Binks’ clock slow down to the point of stoppage. In the other, Binks witnessed a tremendous fast-forwarding of time. Who knows what else he saw in those brief moments before becoming kitten ka-noodle. I hope it was amazing.

That’s really where our understanding of black holes ends. Oh, and that supermassive ones exists at the centers of every galaxy, holding them together, yet eating them up at the same time. But I’ll save that for another day. Until then, you can ponder the magnificent warpage of space, time, and matter inside the should-be impossibility of … the black hole.