Do black holes merge? Supermassive black holes on a collision course hold the answer
The collision of a massive duo of black holes should provide scientists with answers about a ‘background hum’ of gravitational waves and settle the question of whether black holes merge.
Astronomers have spotted a distant pair of black holes — each with a mass 800 million times that of the sun — headed for a collision.
As the supermassive black holes approach their ultimate fate, they will begin sending the ripples of gravitational waves through space-time — making a contribution to the background noise of gravitational waves from other supermassive black holes.
Even before the collision occurs, the gravitational waves emanating from the supermassive black hole pair will dwarf those previously detected from the mergers of much smaller black holes and neutron stars.
Chiara Mingarelli, an associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City and co-discover of the black hole trajectories, says: “Supermassive black hole binaries produce the loudest gravitational waves in the universe.”
