Astronomers React to A Collision That Shook the Cosmos

 

Space is filled with astronomical titans so massive that we are simply unable to comprehend these behemoths roaming the

 infinite abyss of space that that power is enormous that power is can be greater than all of the power that is coming out from all the stars in that galaxy it can be the biggest source of power bigger than everything else in a galaxy coming from this spinning black hole whose size is like a small piece of the solar system while we are largely in the dark when it comes to the wonders of the universe thanks to recent advances in technology we have been able to observe the unobservable we're able to collect data of all sorts that tell us exactly how everything came to be and although we are just scrubbing the surface of this fascinating and deep history we have made a major discovery in recent years that will help us write another chapter in the celestial tome of the universe welcome to Science Reads today we will unravel a major discovery that has changed the way we look at the universe an unstoppable force meets an immovable object we have long understood at least in theory what happens when two black holes crash into one another thanks to the revolutionary theory of relativity by Einstein astronomers and theorists alike have been able to predict these magnificent clashes as well as create accurate models that depict such massive events the first official detection of the merging of two black holes happened not long ago it was the middle of autumn in 2015 when the LIGO laser interferometers in Washington and Louisiana picked up the gravitational wave at the time it was a major breakthrough in our understanding of the universe and many scientists and theorists were ecstatic for what the future of this field could bring the late professor himself Stephen Hawking had this to say after the astronomical revolution gravitational waves provide a completely new way of looking at the universe

 the ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionize astronomy this discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system and the first observation of black holes merging on the other hand although a few collisions of neutron stars have been detected

 it is estimated that within our very own galaxy neutron star collisions happen approximately once every 50,000 years although the data is rather slim some believe that after two or more neutron stars in a multi-solar system smash into each other it triggers the formation of a black hole and thus could explain how these mysterious and dense objects are born the crash between a black hole and a neutron star has been theorized for ages but we never truly had any confirmations until the beginning of 2020 the day that shook the world of astronomy a galactic battle for the ages though a similar collision was detected on August 14 2019 scientists were unable to confirm whether this event captured by the virgo observatory in Italy and the league of scientific

 collaboration in the united states

 was indeed a clash between a neutron star and a black hole this collision was labeled GW190814 and the main reason that we are unsure if this is a black hole neutron star collision is because as it stands our classification for a stellar black hole is an object

 that has between 3 and 10 solar masses while a neutron star is classified as having somewhere between 1.2 to 2 solar masses we know for sure that one of the objects in GW190814 was undoubtedly over 5 solar masses however the second object seemed to only be 2.6 solar masses so what does this mean it meant that scientists didn't know for sure if the second object was a black hole or a neutron star as it could have fit the bill for either entity though we may never know if GW190814 depicts this type of merger what we know for sure is that surprisingly confirmation of this event was observed not once but twice within 10 days these readings were captured by the very same observatories in the U.S. and Italy on January 5th and 15th of 2020 the two events were subsequently labeled GW200105 and GW200115 after the year month and day they were found details of the detection the data of the first event gw200105 suggests that approximately 900 million years ago there was a collision between a neutron star roughly twice the size of our sun with a massive black hole estimated to

 be over nine times the size of our sun

 the second event captured nearly 10 days later GW200115 shows a collision between two massively dense objects that happens somewhere between million and 1.5 billion light years away it is estimated that both the neutron star and the black hole of this collision were smaller than the first event the neutron star being approximately one and a half times the size of our sun while the black hole was over six times the size of our sun when an event like this occurs between two massive objects clash there are ripples created in the space-time continuum that travel throughout the rest of the universe think of a drop of water crashing on a pond at the center where the drop of water landed the ripples created are huge and as the waves travel outward the ripples become smaller and smaller until they disappear completely to the naked eye however just because your eyes can't see these ripples anymore doesn't mean that they have disappeared there are atomic echoes left of this event that could be measured with very sophisticated and sensitive machinery this is in all essence how we're able to measure these tiny waves that have traveled millions of light years away throughout the universe to put it into perspective these waves captured by the observatories in Italy and the us are not meters long not even centimeters when these waves arrive to earth they measure no more than one thousandth of the diameter of a proton the precision of our equipment is impeccable and it will only get better with time which will in turn help us capture more astronomical events of this magnitude a missing glow although it may seem that our data is sufficient to be able to recreate a model that could help us visualize exactly how an event like this would occur there is still one huge piece of the puzzle missing light we have been unable to capture any signs of light emitted by colossal events like this this has puzzled astronomers and astrophysicists alike although they were unable to match either of these new gravitational wave detections with observations of light waves it didn't necessarily mean there wasn't any light emitted the detection of light waves is much less precise so scientists were only able to narrow down the location of the source to about 17 of the sky which meant that scientists were looking at an area the equivalent of 2 900 full moons these were not events where the black holes munched on the neutron stars like the cookie monster and flung bits and pieces about said Patrick Brady a physicist at

 the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

 and current spokesperson of the ligo scientific collaboration it appears that after a neutron star comes close to the gravitational field of a black hole it is not disintegrated or torn apart slowly if that were the case it would produce light waves that could have been observed by now instead it appears that the black hole literally swallows the neutron star in a matter of seconds leaving nothing behind to see in its wake no one truly knows for sure how neutron stars fair after these unparalleled collisions but scientists are hopeful LIGO's next observing run is set to begin in mid to late 2022 meaning that we might be able to shed some light on this gripping mystery hope for the future we might have answers very soon witnessing the death of a neutron star is the holy grail of modern nuclear physics matter inside a neutron star exists at densities completely unknown to us it is believed that pressures inside this star might dissolve neutrons into a plasma of fundamental particles this means that neutron stars of a certain mass appear smaller than they actually are if we could gather more data from gravitational waves produced as the star spiraled into the black hole it may reveal the star size and the consistency of the matter within it more precisely it might give us a glimpse into the exotic substance sometimes called neutronium, a theorized element composed entirely of neutrons but perhaps that is a subject for another article let's work on solving one mystery at a time thank you all for reading I hope you have learned something new if you did be sure to subscribe to the channel for more amazing content like this if you're feeling generous you can buy us a coffee with the link in the description this will help us toward our goal of

 bringing you better and longer articles

 every single day of the week and as always thanks for reading we'll see you next time