- Black holes and neutron stars, the collapsed cores of massive supergiant stars, are the densest and most massive objects in the universe. As they come into each other’s gravitational fields, they orbit, forming a binary system. Cosmic earthquakes result. This results in the fabric’s distortion of spacetime. A new massive supermassive black hole is born when these objects collide and merge. Some are 150 times heavier than our sun. They orbit each other, forming a binary system. The powerful gravitational forces involved trigger The diversity of black holes is large. They come in all sizes and combinations. Ditto for neutron stars. This is a new era for gravitational wave detections. Ultralight bosons gather in clouds around twirling black holes. Black holes trap many boson particles in their powerful gravity field. This interaction generates gravitational waves that hurtle through space.
- Most galaxies have a massive black hole in their center. They act as a drain does in your bathtub. Their job is to pull in a lot of extra stuff so that the galaxy’s center doesn’t get clogged up and cause enormous problems. They keep the machine running smoothly. There are even black holes in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The denser inner regions of galaxies reveal the dark matter in the internal areas.
- Two nearby supermassive black holes are on a collision course. They are the closest pair of supermassive black holes yet known.
- Neutron stars are compact stellar objects. They are born from the explosive deaths of stars that weigh between 10 and 25 solar masses. They are some of the densest things in the universe and have a strong gravitational field 2 billion times stronger than Earth. We know neutron stars spin rapidly because of the angular momentum they keep from their exploding parent stars. When a Neutron star is a little out of shape, it emits ripples of gravitational waves.
- A black hole swallowing its companion neutron star whole. We confirm below observations of gravitational waves from a black hole and a neutron star colliding.
- Approximately one in every hundred stars in the Milky Way is a neutron star. Deep inside every star, a war rages. Gravity pulls in while the heat generated by nuclear reactions pushes out to create a relatively stable plasma ball. When the nuclear reaction cools down, gravity wins. The newly formed hot iron core explodes. The hot gas from the explosion radiates into the cosmos.
