Simulation Reveals Spiraling Supermassive Black Holes

From the creator

A new model is bringing scientists a step closer to understanding the kinds of light signals produced when two supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, spiral toward a collision. For the first time, a new computer simulation that fully incorporates the physical effects of Einstein's general theory of relativity shows that gas in such systems will glow predominantly in ultraviolet and X-ray light. Just about every galaxy the size of our own Milky Way or larger contains a monster black hole at its center. Observations show galaxy mergers occur frequently in the universe, but so far no one has seen a merger of these giant black holes. Scientists have detected merging stellar-mass black holes -- which range from around three to several dozen solar masses -- using the National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Gravitational waves are space-time ripples traveling at the speed of light. They are created when massive orbiting objects like black holes and neutron stars spiral together and merge. Supermassive mergers will be much more difficult to find than their stellar-mass cousins. One reason ground-based observatories can't detect gravitational waves from these events is because Earth itself is too noisy, shaking from seismic vibrations and gravitational changes from atmospheric disturbances. The detectors must be in space, like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) led by ESA (t

Published 2018-10-02 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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