you like holes? This perfectly baffling image of two black holes merging into the accretion disk of another black hole is from Robert Hurt of NASA’s Center for Infrared Analysis and Processing. Illustrates an article on the energy that burns from the fusion of singularities deep in space. (summarized by aps.org and Scientific American).
On May 21, 2019, the LIGO / Virgo collaboration’s gravitational wave detectors picked up a possible signal from the merger of two black holes. According to an astronomical team, that candidate event, which has not yet been confirmed, may be related to a glow or flare from a distant quasar. Based on this association, the team claims that the fusion of the black hole occurred within the gaseous disk around the quasar. The researchers predict that the fused object, which is presumed to be a black hole with a record mass about 150 times that of the Sun, will fall back onto the disk in about a year, creating a second flare. …
The team’s model explains this glow as a fusion of two black holes within the quasar accumulation disk. According to the model, the resulting black hole shot out of the collision at high speed, creating a shock front that heated the gas along its path. The flare was delayed for several weeks relative to the gravitational wave signal because the light slowed down as it scattered on the opaque disk. At some point, the fast-moving black hole escaped from the disk, which would explain why the eruption ended after about 40 days.
The researchers predict that the black hole will orbit around the quasar’s central supermassive black hole and crash back into the disk approximately 1.6 years after the merger. Such a shock would reignite the flare, which is why Graham and the company plan to keep their eyes on this quasar for years to come.
Hurt’s other successes include Sedna’s first visualizations and the enormous threat of a hypothetical undetected gas giant coming out of the sticks. Here is a talk he gave in 2014: “I have one of the best jobs in the universe, which is to show you the universe.”
