• Question: What would happen if to 2 black holes together

    Asked by anon-351683 to Yannick on 29 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Yannick Verbelen

      Yannick Verbelen answered on 29 Mar 2023:

      Interesting question indeed, I don’t think anyone has ever observed 2 black holes colliding with each other, but considering the immense gravitational pull, I would theorise that the black holes merge together into a single even more massive black hole. But until we observe that happening, there is no way to know for certain.

Comments

  • Photo: anon-361975

    anon-361975 commented on :

    what happens if 2 black holes collide

  • Photo: Lucien

    Lucien commented on :

    Oh, I’m afraid Yannick is actually wrong on this one, black hole binaries that merge are observed nowadays through gravitational wave detection! (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_black_hole).

    Black holes are such massive and objects that when they collide they start rotating superfast around each other and basically make the spacetime shake so much that it emits a lot of these gravitational waves. Furthermore, it is pretty certain now that this collision also releases a LOT of energy under the form of cosmic rays. Telescopes and gravitational wave detectors are now looking forward to observe such an event both with gravitational waves and with optical telescopes (that’s what’s called ‘multi-messenger astronomy’).

    As Yannich said, black holes are expected to merge as an even bigger black hole, but also such black holes are likely to have galaxies around them (like the black hole at the center of the milky way), so not only the two black holes would collide, but all the stars in their respective galaxies are likely to smash each other… I wouldn’t like to be there when this happens 🙂