Big News! Supermassive orbiting black holes detected

Okay, so merging black holes are no more a secret. Two gravitational wave signals were detected by LIGO in Feb and June last year. The signals proved existence of gravitational waves coming out of the black hole merger.

Image courtesy: UNM

However, black holes must be entangled in an orbit, attracting each-other in a circular dance before they merge. This phenomenon is very hard to detect, because the signal is not so strong compared to the merger event.

This week, that exact event has been confirmed in groundbreaking work published in The Astrophysical Journal. This was a feat achieved by a collaboration between University of New Mexico and Stanford University fellows.

Karishma Bansal from UNM is the first author in the published paper.

Karishma Bansal
Karishma Bansal. Image courtesy: UNM

This event, happening millions of light years away from us, was result of very hard work happening since last 10 years. The method for detection was very similar to the LIGO instrument, which works by creating a virtual huge machine by placing 2 detectors at large distances.

Image courtesy: UNM
Image courtesy: UNM

In addition to the black holes, this discovery is also important because this is the first instance of detection of two galaxies. Kudos to the scientists and fellows for this important discovery!

 

What happens when you enter a Black Hole?

Black holes are fascinating objects. Right from coining of the term “Black Hole” in year 1971 and discovery of the first one in year 1976, Black Holes have been the most curious objects scientists ever analysed in our Cosmos.
We often hear that black holes have very strong gravity and nothing can escape them, not even light. So anything that a Black Hole gobbles up it gone for good.

 

Black holes are fascinating objects. Right from coining of the term “Black Hole” in year 1971 and discovery of the first one in year 1976, Black Holes have been the most curious objects scientists ever analysed in our Cosmos.

We often hear that black holes have very strong gravity and nothing can escape them, not even light. So anything that a Black Hole gobbles up is gone for good.

Scientists have also been mooting possible outcomes of entry into Black Hole. Since we have not directly seen a Black Hole yet (Indirect observations have been made for many Black Holes), it is not possible to know what happens to the matter that enters a Black Hole.

An interesting question arises here: What if one of us tries to enter a Black Hole? Although practically almost impossible, this in itself gives rise to interesting possibilities!

Scientists have proposed some hypothesis over this.

1. Black Hole tears everything apart and eats it up

black hole

Due to huge gravity, any object coming near a black hole is torn apart to pieces. So if you dare to go near a black hole, you will be sucked dead before you realise something happened.

2. Black hole stores all matter’s information on its even horizon

This is an interesting hypothesis. IN August 2015, world’s most renowned space scientist and physicist Stephen Hawking proposed that “The information is stored not in the interior of the black hole as one might expect, but on its boundary, the event horizon“.

So if you are lucky enough to reach near a black hole, your existence will be lost and your information will be stored on event Horizon.

3. Other side of Black Hole – A White Hole

According to this theory, the other end of a Black Hole is a White Hole. This White Hole gives birth to a new universe, where it spits out all matter sucked from parent universe. It means even if dead, you will enter a new universe if you enter a Black Hole.

4. A Fascinating world

If you have watched Christopher Nolan directed feature film “Interstellar”, you are familiar with this. This theory suggests that you can very well enter a Black Hole, if you have a durable protective shield. Once inside, you may find strange things like intermingling of dimensions, where you are able to interact with five dimensions at the same time.

So, looking at these hypothesis, one thing looks certain: You will probably not live to tell what happens inside a black hole. Hold on. Did you say it is still worth giving a try?