We could one day have vast arrays of telescopes capable of cataloging billions or trillions of stars, exoplanets, exomoons, and even have detected life. We might catalog so many of these objects that we can statistically infer everything about the universe we live in, and even infer what we have not seen - And how we could go about looking for those things...

How long before it becomes boring?

There is one thing all those futuristic remote sensing technologies might never be able to characterize properly from a distance: Black Holes!

The closest Black Hole is in a triple star system called HR 6819 in the Telescopium constellation. It is located about 1120 light years away and is visible to the naked eye south of 33 degrees North latitude. The object in the center of the system is invisible, and inferred to be a black hole having a mass about 4.2-times greater than that of our Sun.

The theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics break down in a black hole. Therefore, getting close enough to a black hole to gather experimental data could yield very significant discoveries about the universe we live in.

Breakthrough Starshot has been proposed as a concept for our first interstellar probe. Currently it is proposed to carry camera to capture images of any planets orbiting Alpha Centauri. However, it could instead carry sensors to test General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in the vicinity of a black hole. Sent on its way at close to the speed of light, we might get the first telemetry from a black hole in 2200 years.

Some interesting data that we could collect might include sensors that can detect the "spaghetti-fying" effect of gravity on the probe as it approaches the black hole, looking for any unexpected variability in the gravitational field, not predicted by General Relativity. Also, it might record anomalous magnetism, electric charge, exotic particles, Hawking Radiation, unusual phenomena associated with in-falling matter, photos of the accretion disk, jets, orbital parameters and other characteristics of objects in the star system, etc.

Besides getting a closer look at alien life, getting a closer look at a black hole is a good possibility for an interstellar probe. Perhaps one day we could even set up a permanent science station orbiting the black hole, and really figure out what makes this universe tick!