Big Pic: Simulated Black Hole Collision Shreds The Milky Way [ANIMATED] Black holes arent just ultra-massive collapsed stars that trap light with the sheer force of their gravitational waves. Theyre also very difficult objects to model--especially when they interact with other black holes. This image from a recent study represents a good first impression of what two black holes might look like as they come close to slamming into one another. There are only two bodies pictured, but their mass bends the starlight around them in strange ways, creating the impression of several orbs. In the world of asteroids, comets, and planets, collisions follow fairly classical physics models--the set of rules Isaac Newton pioneered for describing the way things speed up, slow down, tug on each other, and otherwise behave in this universe. This system remains pretty accurate for modeling, say, a lander approaching a comet, or an asteroid slamming into Earth. But Einstein showed that Newtownian physics is at best a rough approximation of the universes ultra large-scale mechanics. Black holes bend spacetime, sending ripples through the universal fabric. When two get close, they lurch toward one another at substantial fractions of lightspeed, warping spacetime to tatters in the process. The effect looks a bit like what youd see if you bounced a starscape off a wobbling fun house mirror. Whenever scientists tried to model it, physicist Matthew Duez tells Popular Science, their equations blew up in their faces.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 17:45:49 +0000
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