In the fall of 2017, our knowledge of the universe has changed forever. And although the existence of gravitational waves was predicted by Albert Einstein back in 1916 (while doubting that they could be detected at all), scientists were still able to do it. Physicists from the international collaborations LIGO and VIRGO first recorded gravitational waves in 2015, and two years later they won the Nobel Prize in Physics. The source of small distortions of space and time (that is, gravitational waves) was the collision of two supermassive black holes. The search for the so-called ripples in the universe continues, and recently scientists have published fresh data - it turns out that supermassive black holes can capture several black holes that are significantly inferior to it in size.
Physics of black holes.
Massive objects capable of absorbing everything that happens to be nearby are called black holes by physicists. It is believed that all the information absorbed by these space monsters remains in them forever. Nothing, not even the quanta of light itself, can escape.
In 2019, scientists managed the incredible and the world finally saw a black hole, but more precisely, its event horizon. Photographs of a supermassive object located 55 million light-years from Earth once again proved Einstein right.
And despite the fact that the general theory of relativity (GR) is already more than a hundred years old, which is quite a lot in general, we have just begun to get to know the Universe. But this acquaintance brought a lot of questions. Including black holes.
British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking suggested back in the 1970s that black holes emit weak radiation. Which ultimately carries the energy away from the black hole. Researchers around the world are trying to resolve this paradox, and it seems that they are already close to solving it
And while some researchers are trying to understand the complex evolution of these space objects, their colleagues are making mind-blowing discoveries. So, according to a new study published in the journal Nature, black holes not only collide with each other. It turned out that the larger the size of a black hole, the more of its kind it can absorb.
Mergers and acquisitions
Let's start with what astronomers know about the existence of two types of black holes. The first are formed from dying stars, and their mass is probably tens of times greater than the mass of our Sun. The second, supermassive black holes, by contrast, lurk at the center of galaxies (including the Milky Way) and can contain millions of times the mass of their tiny cousins.
A few years ago, scientists recorded an unusual signal called GW190521 (astronomers give gravitational wave signals the date they were observed, so GW190521 marks a gravitational wave detected on May 21, 2019). The signal, according to the authors of the scientific work, is the most amazing discovery to date. The fact is that some black holes do not have a circular orbit leading to a merger at all.
Another oddity is that one of the colliding black holes is itself the result of a collision. Moreover, the merger of several black holes took place in outer space filled with these inhabitants of the Universe. As a rule, supermassive objects are found in the centers of galaxies. But what happens if three black holes fall into the disk surrounding the supermassive black hole?
Further developments are likely to happen quickly. And strange. The result of the May 2019 merger appeared to be a black hole whose size ranges from perhaps 100 to 1,000 times the mass of our Sun.
And while the merger likely resulted in the formation of a medium-sized black hole (about 100 to 1,000 times the mass of the Sun), something unusual lurked nearby. According to the new hypothesis, one of the black holes involved in the observed collision has previously collided with its own kind. If this were the case, then the mass of the newly formed black hole would be 142 times the mass of our Sun.
Chaos in the Universe.
So what happens when a supermassive black hole traps three others in a monstrous disk orbiting it? The answer is simple: time and space begin to twist and bend. To understand how this is possible, physicists have created a computer model of the collision of these objects.
“If other black holes fall into a supermassive black hole, it forms a massive disk of matter that revolves around it, like the planets of the solar system, only very large,” explains Imre Bartosa, a physicist at the University of Florida and co-author of the scientific work.
In this cosmic dance, the place of the planets is taken by the active core of the galaxy (that is, a supermassive black hole). Being surrounded by smaller black holes on all sides, it attracts them like balls thrown into a funnel. Astronomers have identified this model as an almost two-dimensional system, and the culprit of what is happening again turned out to be the gravitational force of a supermassive black hole.
As astronomers have found out, the proximity of black holes to each other turns the scene into chaos - gravitational waves collide with each other, thereby stretching and destroying the fabric of the Universe itself.
But the two black holes didn't actually revolve around each other when they collided, meaning their orbits were elliptical, more oval rather than circular. This is strange, because the force of gravity arising from the collision of two black holes would make objects move in circular trajectories. But that did not happen.
As astronomers have found out, the proximity of black holes to each other turns the scene into chaos - gravitational waves collide with each other, thereby stretching and destroying the fabric of the Universe itself.
But the two black holes didn't actually revolve around each other when they collided, meaning their orbits were elliptical, more oval rather than circular. This is strange, because the force of gravity arising from the collision of two black holes would make objects move in circular trajectories. But that did not happen.
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