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Even small black holes emit gravitational waves when they collide, and LIGO heard them
LIGO scientists say they have discovered gravitational waves coming from another black hole merger, and it's the tiniest one they've ever seen.
The findings, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, could shed light on the diversity of the black hole population — and may help scientists figure out why larger black holes appear to behave a little differently from the smaller ones.
"Its mass makes it very interesting," said Salvatore Vitale, a data analyst and theorist with the LIGO Lab at MIT. The discovery, he added, "really starts populating more of this low-mass region that [until now] was quite empty."
The black holes had estimated masses of around 12 and 7 solar masses.
Related: LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 20 2017, @07:46AM (11 children)
Seems with as small as black holes are in relation to their mass, unless their collision trajectories are dead-on, seems like they oughta just go into a wild spin-fit with each other - marriage by proximity with their strong gravitational field.
Will a black hole explode if it is spun up too much?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 20 2017, @08:07AM (3 children)
I believe they tend to orbit each other for a long time before colliding, same as with that famous neutron star pair measured on Aug. 17.
Black holes can't really explode since all the stuff can't escape the event horizon, although matter and gas in the accretion disc surrounding the black hole can undergo some violent changes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 20 2017, @09:38AM (2 children)
Just curious if tangentially incoming matter would spin the thing up so much that centrifugal force would sling the innards of the black hole to the other side of the event horizon, in which case I would think it would spew subatomic particles in a radial pattern along its "equator" - in much the same manner as a centrifugal spinning water sprinkler spews water droplets.
I have often thought that its the rotational inertia of the universe that may make it "eternal", in the sense that if any black hole tried to gobble the whole thing up, it would be swallowed and re-emitted as sprays of subatomic particles, which re-initiates the whole coalesced hydrogen-star birth cycle. How the entropy resets is a whole new can of worms for me, with theological explanations seeming to be the best answer.
Do we really know the size of the universe, or are we still constrained by the word "observable"? Did this whole universe start with the "big bang", or is the part that did ( our observable universe ), a part of even a larger universe which we do not see with our present technology? I guess what I am having a hard time with is does the universe have a starting and an ending time, or is it infinite, with "local universes" such as the one we observe - winking in and out of existence like some sort of relaxation oscillator?
I guess no one knows, but as we build better and more sensitive sensors, we seem to make two new questions for every answer we seek.
As a kid of the 50's, I thought we were on the edge of knowing it all. Everything was made out of atoms. We could even count them. They went together like tinker-toys to build everything. Once we figure out how to put these atoms together, there was no limit to what we could make. Even life itself was a collection of atoms in the right order. I was little more than a really fancily designed radio thingie. And told God made me. Out of atoms. Or dust, which is made from atoms.
Now, as an old man, I feel so much dumber. Nowhere near as close to intellectual nirvana that I had as a kid. All I seemed to discover is how little I really know. This new quantum stuff really blows me away. So does the sheer complexity of DNA, and how cleverly assembled are the chemical structures and reactions that we call "life".
Despite the fact I can now design and program my own computers, when as a kid, I was totally fascinated with a mechanical adding machine. I feel a heckuva lot dumber today than I did 50 years ago.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 20 2017, @09:57AM (1 child)
PBS SpaceTime covered this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePNhUJ2reI but you'll probably need the intro ones too.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 21 2017, @04:32AM
In other words, "black hole" is the same thing as "edge of the universe".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday November 20 2017, @08:17AM (5 children)
They do go into a "spin-fit" with each other. At some point though, while spinning furiously, they do eventually touch. Hence, the term collide. A straight up head on collision seems extremely unlikely, but if the universe is indeed infinite according to some theories, they do occur.
I remember in reading the last LIGO papers they used a term "ring down". If a quarter was spinning on your desk, eventually it will (excepting those times when it stands on its edge) start to fall over and start rotating on the edges, faster and faster, till the surface of the quarter is finally flat against the surface. The ring down is that end when the black holes actually collide and merge together. If you listen to the quarter, that's similar to what the scientists are doing listening to the black holes circle each other.
Hoping one of our other posters more well versed in the matter chime in, and explain it better.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday November 20 2017, @09:36AM (1 child)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtZ7OVoI2nc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL81uuYW9BY
But it's worth just subscribing, they cover a whole host of things: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g/featured?disable_polymer=1
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 20 2017, @10:17AM
Thanks for the links. I watched your last one first.. intriguing.. they have the same belief I have about EM drives and "energy from the vacuum", but I do not understand the underlying physics, rather I am merely conjecturing using previous observations as basis.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday November 20 2017, @09:41AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 20 2017, @10:31AM
Thanks... I was looking for what would provide the "resistance" to slow it down. I was envisioning a barbell-shaped mass spending an eternity in a high speed spin with nothing to slow it down. I never considered the energy needed to create gravitational waves.
I considered "tidal" fields, as in how the earth and moon interact through gravity, with the earth gradually slowing down as it transfers its rotational inertia to the moon, slinging it further and further out. But I saw no nearby thing to transfer the energy to.
Just because it isn't nearby does not mean its not there. Those gravitational waves go on to infinity, I suppose, giving infinitesimally small ( but non-zero ) drag on the rotating pair.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday November 20 2017, @11:31PM
Thanks. I always appreciate the explanations from you guys :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Monday November 20 2017, @12:53PM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.