Collision of Holes.

Simulation of Spiralling black holes.

Credits: NASA Goddard

Black holes are the densest objects in the universe, so dense in fact that they warp spacetime itself. They can even trap light, the fastest thing in the universe, hence the name black hole. But enough about that, I'm sure most of you are already familiar with all of this. But what happens when such dense objects with mass ranging from tens of times upto billions of times that of our sun? Well in May 2019 such a collision was detected between 2 Stellar mass black holes and after going through all the information researchers are now saying that after the big bang it is the biggest bang that has been observed. Because the detectors can pick up the gravitational waves as sound the collision was actually heard as a thud. Another interesting thing about this collision is that previously there were 2 kinds of black holes known to us, Stellar mass black holes and Super massive black holes. This particular merger was exciting in another way as well because the resulting black hole was an Intermediate mass black hole, the first ever discovered. This information can be valuable for our understanding of the evolution of black holes.

Intermediate mass black holes

This new type of black hole is very fascinating because before this discovery scientists had only detected stellar mass black holes, that are around tens of times the mass of the sun, and super massive black holes which can have millions to billions of solar masses. Many of these types of black holes have been discovered but it is the first time an Intermediate mass black holes has been detected. Maybe now we will find even more because we know that they can form as a result of the merger of 2 Stellar mass black holes. 

Detection

When massive objects like black holes or even neutron stars orbit close to each other at high speeds they disturb the fabric of spacetime. That disturbance moves like waves at the speed of light, these are called gravity waves. These were first theorized by the general theory of relativity. There are facilities like LIGO and Virgo which use Laser Interferometry to detect these waves. How it all works is actually very interesting and you can find more detail by going to their website. In simple words the facility has 2 arms shaped like an  L. The waves stretch space itself in one direction and compress it in the perpendicular direction. Just like if you take a rubber ball and press it from 2 points, the perpendicular points will stretch outwards. Due to that as the waves pass through earth one arm becomes longer and the other, which is at a 90 degree angle, becomes shorter and vice versa. I would recommend you check out the official sites to have a better understanding.

Please leave your comments and thoughts in the comments section below. I'm new but you can follow me on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/gillfaraz

Instagram: @gill.faraz

Twitter: @gillfaraz88