During Earth's Archaean Ion, when life learned how to use energy from the Sun, two black holes in a distant galaxy merged into one gravitational wave. Over the next 2.9 billion years, these waves discovered vast and empty space, but the lazy beep on Earth learned to use lasers and mirrors to measure gravitational vibrations compared to the nucleus of an atom. When gravitational waves reach the Earth, they become the third sign of humanity merging black holes.
With this third discovery of gravitational waves called GW170104, gravitational astronomy is coming into it. As in previous mergers, the initial black holes were massive black holes (19.4 and 31.2 solar masses, respectively), and they became black holes with a mass of 48.7 solar masses, emitting 2 solar masses in the form of gravitational waves. This is similar to the other two mergers we know of and ensures that black holes with mass larger than 20 suns can be produced. X-ray observations near black holes previously showed a mass between 5 and 15 solar masses. The size of these mergers supports the existence of a medium-sized black hole between the size of the star mass and the supermassive shape found at the centers of galaxies.
![]() |
0 Comments
We welcome relevant and respectful comments. Off-topic or spam comments may be removed.