The impact sound of two black holes: surprisingly gentle and melodious

Three billion years ago, a strange phenomenon happened that permanently changed the structure of the universe. It was a massive explosion created by two giant black holes colliding. The result of this collision was a super-large black hole, weighing 49 solar masses. Scientists have recorded the sound emitted from the collision of two black holes, the sound would be different from your imagination.

Illustration of two black holes swirling around each other.LIGO / Caltech / MIT / Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet).

This explosion formed and released twice the energy level of solar masses within a hundredth of a second. It emits a gravitational wave so strong that it changes the structure of space - time around it. Scientists have recently been able to detect this shock collision, thus gaining more knowledge about black holes and the universe.

This is the third time that gravitational waves have been recorded by devices on earth, and is the first time measured directly. Now we can learn more about the masses of black holes, how they form, their area of ​​existence and how they spin around each other before merging into one. In special cases when a collision, with a black hole has a mass of 30 times the sun, the other is 19 times larger, the larger one will suck the smaller one towards him.

As the two black holes approached each other, they began to spin around each other as if in a long waltz, at the same time they emitted gravitational waves. They are getting closer and closer and merging into one, causing an explosion in astronomical proportions. The sounds emanate romantic in a gloomy way. This finding was published in Physical Review Letters. Scientists can also record sounds by combining them with their final extensive receipts.

The melodious sound of the collision between two black holes.

This discovery was made by the leading gravitational observatory of the National Science Foundation (NSF). This facility is called the gravitational wave observatory by Laser Interferometry (LIGO). It is operated by a group of international scientists from NASA, MIT, and Caltech.

LIGO has two campuses, one in Hanford, Washington State, and the other near Livingston, Louisiana, 1,800 miles apart (about 2,896 km). Gravitational waves are really difficult to identify and measure. They change the space above and around the earth with only a fraction of the size of a proton. However, LIGO is also a very sensitive device, it can detect even small changes.

The chart compares the masses of black holes created by collisions and the mass of the sun.LIGO.

Interferometer is basically a laser-based measuring device, it can detect and locate the source of gravitational waves. Researchers can learn a great deal about gravity (which is one of the four main forces of the universe) by carefully examining the light and space of these two giant interferometers. Scientists from LIGO said that these two observatories have the same level of complexity as large particle accelerators (LHC) at CERN (European Nuclear Research Organization). LIGO will be responsible for conducting discoveries to understand the effects of gravitational waves on quantum mechanics, relativity, astronomy and even nuclear physics.

LIGO's two laboratories are located thousands of kilometers apart.

A member of the LIGO group, Laura Cadonati, a scientist from Georgia Tech, had some share with National Geographic. She said, ' Before these discoveries, we did not even know the existence of black holes' . Previously, astronomers thought that they would never find a thing 10 times more massive than the sun. These newly recorded results show that black holes actually have a much larger mass than they could imagine.

So what exactly is a black hole? Black holes are the remains of a giant star. Astronomers believe that a giant star will collapse when it is about to run out of nuclear fuel. The smaller star (based on the size of the sun) will eventually expand into a giant red color and then collapse into a white dwarf.

For larger stars, the process will be a little different. At this time the external pressure pushes energy into the space to disappear. As a result, gravity was no longer compensated for and it began to pull things around into it with tremendous power. From the merger of two black holes, scientists conducted research and in September and December 2015, gravitational waves (from the merger of the two black holes above) were recorded.

One theory is that the aforementioned black holes form stars that are mostly composed of helium and hydrogen. These gases are stable and lose their mass over time, so when the star dies, the explosion of a black hole is much stronger.

LIGO / Caltech / MIT / Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet).

LIGO's team of researchers studied gravitational waves carefully detected. From there they could determine the direction in which each black hole was spinning and their axis before colliding. Scientists have hypothesized that there may be sister stars. The black holes still rotate in the darkest darkness, revolving around each other as a predator of predators, until both are merged.

However, some data show that stars actually produce these black holes really far from each other. And finally, with a larger-scale sketch, scientists have found them. lying on each other's orbit. They hope that these findings will help us better understand stars and how they evolve over time. Scientists also hope to get a closer look at dark matter.

Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein when he established the theory of relativity, a century ago. But he thought that their impact was very small, and we would not be able to measure them. Today is not only measurable, but through the collected data, we can understand the universe in a whole new way.

So far most of our observations for the universe have been electrified. But with accurate measurements and observations of gravity, we can learn more about the universe through a completely different lens.