But recently researchers reported that they had evidence for two colliding black holes that created a surprising offspring. Their collision formed a middle-weight black hole, around 142 times the mass of our sun.
Daniel Holz, a member of the LIGO team that spotted the collision, and a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, joins Ira to talk about what the observation means for theories of how black holes form and grow.
In case you are keeping track:
Scientists observe mega blackhole that's larger than they believed to be possible [Video]
Black Hole Plasma Conditions Created on Earth – Laser Briefly Uses 1,000 Times the Electric
Magnetic reconnection is generated by the irradiation of the LFEX laser into the micro-coil. The particle outflow accelerated by the magnetic reconnection is evaluated using several detectors. As an example of the results, proton outflows with symmetric distributions were observed. Credit: Osaka University
One of the world’s largest petawatt laser facility, LFEX, located in the Institute of Laser Engineering at Osaka University. Credit: Osaka University
Space Could Be Littered With Eerie Transparent Stars Made Entirely of Bosons
Last year, the astronomical community achieved an absolute wonder. For the very first time, the world collectively laid eyes on an actual image of the shadow of a black hole . It was the culmination of years of work, a magnificent achievement in both human collaboration and technical ingenuity.
And, like the best scientific breakthroughs, it opened a whole new world of enquiry. For a team led by astrophysicist Hector Olivares from Radboud University in the Netherlands and Goethe University in Germany, that enquiry was: how do we know M87* is a black hole?
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New observations of black hole devouring a star reveal rapid disk formation
"In classical theory, the TDE flare is powered by an accretion disk, producing x-rays from the inner region where hot gas spirals into the black hole," Hung said. "But for most TDEs, we don't see x-rays—they mostly shine in the ultraviolet and optical wavelengths—so it was suggested that, instead of a disk, we're seeing emissions from the collision of stellar debris streams."
Coauthors Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC, and Jane Dai at the University of Hong Kong developed a theoretical model, published in 2018, that can explain why x-rays are usually not observed in TDEs despite the formation of an accretion disk. The new observations provide strong support for this model.
Behold! The Black Hole Collision Calculator! - Universe Today
Black holes have been the subject of intense interest ever since scientists began speculating about their existence. Originally proposed in the early 20th century as a consequence of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity , black holes became a mainstream subject a few decades later. By 1971, the first physical evidence of black holes was found and by 2016, the existence of gravitational waves was confirmed for the first time.
This discovery touched off a new era in astrophysics, letting people know collision between massive objects (black holes and/or neutron stars) creates ripples in spacetime that can be detected light-years away. To give people a sense of how profound these events are, Álvaro Díez created the Black Hole Collision Calculator (BHCC) – a tool that lets you see what the outcome of a collision between a black hole and any astronomical object would be!
Astronomers witnessed the birth of the first intermediate black hole
An international team of astronomers witnessed the birth of the first intermediate-mass black hole ever detected. On May 21, 2019, a pair of gravitational wave observatories — The Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, and Virgo, a three-kilometer-long detector in Italy — detected an unusual signal, dubbed GW190521.
"One of the great mysteries in astrophysics is how do supermassive black holes form? They are the million solar-mass elephants in the room. Do they grow from stellar-mass black holes, which are born when a star collapses, or are they born via an undiscovered means? Long have we searched for an intermediate-mass black hole to bridge the gap between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes.
How to have a blast like a black hole
To better understand the process that gives rise to the observed X-rays coming from black holes , scientists at Osaka University used intense laser pulses to create similarly extreme conditions on the lab. "We were able to study the high-energy acceleration of electrons and protons as the result of relativistic magnetic reconnection," senior author Shinsuke Fujioka says. "For example, the origin of emission from the famous black hole Cygnus X-1, can be better understood."
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