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Credit & Copyright: Ryan Nowicki, Bill
Smith & Karan Jani
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
Explanation:
What is the sound of two
black holes merging in deep space?
Sound waves
don't propagate in vacuum, but gravitational
waves do.
In 2015 we were able to "hear" them for the first time
and confirm one of Albert
Einstein's theoretical predictions.
Each square on the grid
of the featured image
represents one of the gravitational wave detections announced so
far by the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA Collaboration.
These plots show how the binary pair accelerates in their orbit
around each other towards merger: the rising frequency effect is called a "chirp".
Although there are significantly more neutron
stars than black holes,
most of the detections are binary
black hole mergers.
That happens because black holes are heavier
and their signals are louder and can be seen farther away, resulting in more detections.
These events are rare, and we don't
expect to see one close by in our Galaxy
any time soon.
But they are happening continuously
throughout the cosmos.
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: gravitational radiation
Publications with words: gravitational radiation
See also:
- APOD: 2025 September 24 Á GW250114: Rotating Black Holes Collide
- Simulation: Two Black Holes Merge
- APOD: 2023 June 29 Á A Message from the Gravitational Universe
- Ninety Gravitational Wave Spectrograms and Counting
- GW200115: Simulation of a Black Hole Merging with a Neutron Star
- When Black Holes Collide
- Fifty Gravitational Wave Events Illustrated