The speed of the collision was such that the black hole managed to escape to the gravitational tug of the stelar swarms.
For the first time, scientists measured not only speed, but also the direction of the cosmic “impulse” produced by the collision of two black holes. The discovery, based on gravitational wave data of the 2019 GW190412 event, offers a new and powerful way to study black holes throughout the universe.
O, published in Nature Astronomy, shows that the newly found black hole was launched by space to More than 50 kilometers per seconda sufficiently fast speed to escape the gravitational attraction of star swarms.
“This is one of the few phenomena in astrophysics where we are not just detecting something – we are rebuild the complete three -dimensional movement Of an object that is thousands of light years away, using only ripples in space-time, ”said Koustav Chandra, astrophysicist at Pennsylvania State University.
Gravitational waves, first detected in 2015, are ripples generated when massive objects, such as black holes or neutrons stars, spiral together. The collision releases energy that distorts the time-timeproducing signs that can be decoded to reveal details such as masses, spins and behavior of melting objects, explains the.
In the case of the GW190412, the two black holes were highly unequal in size: one about 29.7 times the mass of the sun, the other with only 8.4 solar pasta. This imbalance, combined with the way your spins interacted, produced a gravitational wave sign Longer and more clear than normal, providing investigators the necessary data to measure the “Christmas kick”.
Keep arises because such mergers are rarely symmetrical. The unequal distribution of mass or spin can push the resulting black hole away from the collision site, a cosmic retreat effect comparable to the sudden movement of a back gun while shooting. Using a method for the first time in 2018, the researchers got first time calculating the speed and the trajectory of the shot.
Although the merger occurred at 2.4 billion light years away, the result has implications in the way black holes interact with their environments. A strong kick could Eject a black hole from your swarm or even a galaxy. It may also affect the visibility of expected electromagnetic explosions when black holes travel through dense regions, such as active galactic nuclei.
“Measuring setbacks allows us to test whether an explosion really comes from the merger of a black hole or If it’s just a coincidence“Explained Samson Leong of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
With hundreds of black hole mergers already detected, researchers say this technique can open a new chapter in understanding the dynamics of the most extreme objects of the cosmos.
