(Natural News) One of the most common tropes in science fiction involves the use of black holes as portals to other dimensions or points in time. A recent study suggests that such a scenario may be closer to reality than it is to fantasy.

While scientists have predominantly believed that using black holes – a region of space-time exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that not even light can escape from it – as a form of space travel is not feasible, as its intense gravitational forces can crush and "spaghettify" anything that enters it, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Georgia Gwinnett College say otherwise.

The researchers noted that their new simulation models are suggesting that a rotating black hole, which possesses a unique "mass inflation singularity," may actually offer safe passage to spacecraft, like the situation posited by director Christopher Nolan in his 2014 space epic "Interstellar."

According to Gaurav Khanna of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, his team, composed of his colleague Lior Burko and his student Caroline Mallary, was inspired by the said film and wanted to test whether the film's central protagonist, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), would theoretically survive a descent into the fictional supermassive black hole Gargantua.

Mallary built the computer simulation for the study, based on work done by physicist Amos Ori.

"Building on work done by physicist Amos Ori two decades prior, and armed with her strong computational skills, Mallary built a computer model that would capture most of the essential physical effects on a spacecraft, or any large object, falling into a large, rotating black hole like Sagittarius A*," Khanna said in a piece published in Phys.org. (Related: Understanding massive black hole formation: Researchers believe supersonic gas streams from the Big Bang may provide the answer.)

Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius A-star) is a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius.

Mallary discovered that objects dropped into a rotating black hole would not experience "infinitely large" effects upon passage through the hole's horizon singularity – thus increasing the feasibility of using large, rotating black holes as portals for hyperspace travel.