Two black holes may have just exploded with light
In a world first, astronomers may have detected light signals produced from the collision of two black holes deep in space.
A black hole is a region of space where the gravitational pull is so intense nothing, not even light, can escape it once inside a region known as the event horizon.
Now scientists using Caltech's Zwicky Transient Facility located at Palomar Observatory near San Diego think they may have spotted the first known light flare from a pair of colliding black holes.
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An artist's concept shows a supermassive black hole surrounded by a disk of gas. Embedded in this disk are two smaller black holes that may have merged together to form a new black hole. Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) / NASA
When two black holes collide they send out gravitational waves, which ripple across space and can be detected by sensitive instruments on Earth.
This was how the black hole merger was first identified on May 21, 2019.
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Two gravitational wave detectors — the National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, and the European Virgo detector — picked up on the ripples.
One the merger was detected, scientists from the Zwicky Transient Facility facility were on the watch for light signals from the location were the gravitational wave signal originated.
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