The Universe Revealed

When black holes collide

When black holes collide

As you might know almost every galaxy has a super massive black hole in its center core. Recently, gravitational waves were detected from a collision of two galaxy core black holes.
What does happen when two galaxies collide? Well, for one thing the stars in both galaxies are tossed around in a massive disruption of their paths around the center of each galaxy. Eventually, they settle down to form an elliptical galaxy.

That's all well and good, but what's really interesting is what happens when the two super massive black holes collide. You could just imagine the violence of that collision. Two powerful black holes with gravitation attraction that could literally tear up anything, even an entire galaxy, make contact and merge.

One thing that happens is a huge release of energy that causes a gamma ray burst. This could be the result of the stuff orbiting the two black holes being consumed. No one knows for sure why this happens, but it has been observed.

The other thing that happens is the creation of powerful gravitational waves that are sent out into space. These gravitational waves are the product of having two powerful gravity wells merge and make a disruption to space and time.

Every galaxy has a super massive black hole in its core and these supermassive black holes weigh in at millions if not trillions of solar masses. It's not surprising that this type of collision would produce gravitational waves. Einstein predicted it and they have been detected.

Previously, it was thought that these waves were not produced until hundreds of million of years after the collision of two galaxies. Recently, using simulations, it has been shown that gravitational waves are produced only after 10 million years. What this infers is that the black holes merge much sooner in the process than was previously believed.

This will be what happens when our galaxy, The Milky Way, collides with the galaxy Andromeda in 4 or 5 billion years. The supermassive black holes in the center of the two galaxies will merge soon after the collision begins and send powerful gravitational waves out into space.

Now, that would be one spectacular train wreck.

Thanks for reading.