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I was thrilled watching 'Interstellar'. It was only much later that I came to realize certain anomalies in the movie (like the scene in which McConaughey approaches the Gorgantua — his body theoretically should have been ripped apart — much, much before he could reach the singularity).

Ever since, I have been wondering — should there really be a time dilation between Earth and a planet similar in size and mass to Earth — revolving around a supermassive blackhole (like the Miller's Planet described in Interstellar). If an object experiences a similar weight on that planet, what factors cause the dilations shown in the movie?

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    $\begingroup$ This question belongs on physics.stackexchange.com. The time dilation has to do with the gravitational field of the black hole, not that of the planet. Also you do not have to get ripped apart by a black hole, so long as you are a) far enough away from it, and/or b) it is big enough. The bigger the black hole, the smaller the tidal effect is outside the event horizon. $\endgroup$ – Mark Adler Feb 11 '16 at 21:20
  • $\begingroup$ While my math is not up to working out whether the actual numbers work I have worked out that you can get some pretty hairy time dilation while staying outside the Roche limit of a supermassive black hole--and if a planet can survive there it's no threat to a person. $\endgroup$ – Loren Pechtel Feb 12 '16 at 1:32
  • $\begingroup$ @MarkAdler Not just the gravity--if you're close enough in to experience major time dilation you're also close enough in that you'll be orbiting at high relativistic speed which will also cause time dilation. $\endgroup$ – Loren Pechtel Feb 12 '16 at 1:33
  • $\begingroup$ That's a much smaller effect for the subject of the question, where the orbital speed is about 0.5 c with a time dilation of about 15%, but the gravitational effect slows time by a factor of 60,000. See this discussion. $\endgroup$ – Mark Adler Feb 12 '16 at 4:35
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You are a lot further down a gravity well when you are in the vicinity of a black hole. That alone can explain time dilation factors without even considering the extreme velocity that object must have in order to remain in orbit. Both factors help 'slow' the time.

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