Greg Egan's Diáspora starts with the merger of two neutron stars, and that causes a lot of trouble in this side of the galaxy, don't want to imagine what would it be with 2 massive blackholes for the nearby galaxies.
ars · 1h ago
It wouldn't do anything special actually. A black hole from a distance does nothing a sun can't do.
Black holes only become destructive/powerful when you are very close to them.
To elaborate: A black hole is mass, a sun is mass. From a distance there's no difference. The only difference is up close - you can get a lot closer to a black hole dramatically increasing the gravitational force.
But from a distance? Nothing special.
adrianN · 9m ago
Except black holes can be a lot more massive than the biggest stars.
thaumasiotes · 4h ago
Way to headline.
The numbers in the article suggest a violation of conservation of mass:
> Today, the LIGO Collaboration announced the detection of the most colossal black hole merger known to date, the final product of which appears to be a gigantic black hole more than 225 times the mass of the Sun.
> GW231123, first observed on November 23, 2023, seems to be an unprecedented beast of a black hole merger. Two enormous black holes—137 and 103 times the mass of the Sun—managed to keep it together despite their immense combined mass
Is the explanation here "225 is a nice round number, and 240 is technically 'more than' that", or "a lot of mass evaporates into other forms of energy when black holes merge", or "during a merge, it becomes possible for matter to escape an event horizon", or what?
jraines · 3h ago
the extra mass is converted into energy in the form of gravitational waves (maybe other forms too idk but this is part of it)
maxbond · 3h ago
Entire solar masses being lost to gravitational waves, like the voltage drop across a resistor, is a humbling prospect.
bot403 · 2h ago
I'll underscore your awe by reminding you those solar masses disappeared in only 1 tenth of a second - the length of the gravitational wave signal.
nine_k · 1h ago
I suppose nothing but gravitational waves can escape the even horizon — or, rather, gravitational waves are born near / around it, because the black holes bend the space enormously.
OTOH whatever else may be outside the black holes near the merger and count towards their mass for astronomical purposes, such as accretion discs, should be much lighter weight than what's inside the event horizon.
ars · 1h ago
Gravitational waves also can not escape. Those waves carry energy, and it's actually energy that can't escape.
The waves are actually made just to the outside of the event horizon.
david38 · 3h ago
Rather confused. 225 solar masses isn’t gigantic by any means
NooneAtAll3 · 2h ago
it's above what's considered possible to create by usual star collapse means
I'm not even sure what it would mean for two black holes to be too big to collide, or where that became some kind of constraint.
idiotsecant · 1h ago
I don't know if there's ever been a more perfect setup for a your mother joke, but sometimes art is the brush strokes you don't make.
gnabgib · 4h ago
Title needs an edit (maybe the clickbait algo): Astronomers Detect a Black Hole Merger That’s So Massive It Shouldn’t Exist - although, it's not a great title.
imoverclocked · 3h ago
“Black hole merger detected that defies theoretical boundaries.”
sherdil2022 · 3h ago
Our understanding of this universe constantly changes. We all know those - Earth is flat or it is center of universe, on and on.
The black hole is happening. So it exists. So either the observations are wrong or the undeying assumptions are wrong or math / physics we are using to make sense of the event is wrong.
Click-bait articles serve no purpose in advancing science.
Black holes only become destructive/powerful when you are very close to them.
To elaborate: A black hole is mass, a sun is mass. From a distance there's no difference. The only difference is up close - you can get a lot closer to a black hole dramatically increasing the gravitational force.
But from a distance? Nothing special.
The numbers in the article suggest a violation of conservation of mass:
> Today, the LIGO Collaboration announced the detection of the most colossal black hole merger known to date, the final product of which appears to be a gigantic black hole more than 225 times the mass of the Sun.
> GW231123, first observed on November 23, 2023, seems to be an unprecedented beast of a black hole merger. Two enormous black holes—137 and 103 times the mass of the Sun—managed to keep it together despite their immense combined mass
Is the explanation here "225 is a nice round number, and 240 is technically 'more than' that", or "a lot of mass evaporates into other forms of energy when black holes merge", or "during a merge, it becomes possible for matter to escape an event horizon", or what?
OTOH whatever else may be outside the black holes near the merger and count towards their mass for astronomical purposes, such as accretion discs, should be much lighter weight than what's inside the event horizon.
The waves are actually made just to the outside of the event horizon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_massive_stars lists only 2 stars more massive than that
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a65038572/...
The black hole is happening. So it exists. So either the observations are wrong or the undeying assumptions are wrong or math / physics we are using to make sense of the event is wrong.
Click-bait articles serve no purpose in advancing science.