Astronomy Picture of the Day - GW190521: Unexpected Black Holes Collide

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 9 Sep, 2020 | Illustration Credit: Raúl Rubio (Virgo Valencia Group, The Virgo Collaboration)

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: How do black holes like this form? The two black holes that spiraled together to produce the gravitational wave event GW190521 were not only the most massive black holes ever seen by LIGO and VIRGO so far, their masses -- 66 and 85 solar masses -- were unprecedented and unexpected. Lower mass black holes, below about 65 solar masses are known to form in supernova explosions. Conversely, higher mass black holes, above about 135 solar masses, are thought to be created by very massive stars imploding after they use up their weight-bearing nuclear-fusion-producing elements. How such intermediate mass black holes came to exist is yet unknown, although one hypothesis holds that they result from consecutive collisions of stars and black holes in dense star clusters. Featured is an illustration of the black holes just before collision, annotated with arrows indicating their spin axes. In the illustration, the spiral waves indicate the production of gravitational radiation, while the surrounding stars highlight the possibility that the merger occurred in a star cluster. Seen last year but emanating from an epoch when the universe was only about half its present age (z ~ 0.8), black hole merger GW190521 is the farthest yet detected, to within measurement errors.

[MtnClimber]

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[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

[DannyTN]

I don’t like unexpected black holes. They weren’t invited and just need to take their collision elsewhere.

[Ahithophel]

Nature abhors a vacuum, a concept into which any proximal observer of a black hole, let alone colliding black holes, very soon gets experientially gets sucked.

[rightwingcrazy]

And they show up and eat you out of house and home.

[Paleo Pete]

I just hate it when that happens...

[MtnClimber]

They were both trying to eat the same cheeseburger.

[DilJective]

I thought there would be a picture of the East Coast and the West Coast colliding!

;-)

[TigersEye]

It tore quite a hole in that fencing.

[MtnClimber]

The person that named the holes needs to go to critical race training.

[Songcraft]

Black Holes & Matter.

[Pride in the USA]

ping!

[6ppc]

I think a quantum black hole has taken up residence in Biden’s brain. That would explain a lot!

[Deaf Smith]

I always finds these type of statements odd...

"were not only the most massive black holes ever seen by LIGO....we're unprecedented and in expected"

65 Solar Mass vs the closest black hole to Earth is 4 million solar mass...that which is the center of OUR Milky Way Galaxy.

[slimer]

Unexpected Black Holes Collide.

Yes but do they matter???

[minnesota_bound]

Two black marbles chasing each other down the universal drain.

[Red Badger]

When black holes collide........................