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Going into a black hole simulation10/31/2023 Scientists investigated how other characteristics, such as different black hole masses and stellar close approaches, affect tidal disruption events. Instead, survival depends more on the star’s density. The division between stars that fully disrupt and those that endure isn’t simply related to mass. The virtual stars range from about one-tenth to 10 times the Sun’s mass. These simulations are the first to combine the physical effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity with realistic stellar density models. Others are only partially disrupted, retaining some of their mass and returning to their normal shapes after their horrific encounters. Some are completely pulled apart into a long stream of gas, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. As they approach, all are stretched and deformed by the black hole’s gravity. Watch as eight stars skirt a black hole 1 million times the mass of the Sun in these supercomputer simulations. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. Music: "Lava Flow Instrumental" from Universal Production Music Yellow represents the greatest densities, blue the least dense.Ĭredit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Taeho Ryu (MPA) These simulations show that destruction and survival depend on the stars’ initial densities. Others manage to withstand their close encounters. The black hole’s gravity rips some stars apart into a stream of gas, a phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Watch eight model stars stretch and deform as they approach a virtual black hole 1 million times the mass of the Sun. Gravitational waves and the light from surrounding gas are independent ways of learning about the system, and the hope is that they will meet up at the same point."Įmail Meghan Bartels at or follow her on Twitter Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook.14000_TDE_Simulation_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_Best_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_1080.webm (1920x1080) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_Still.jpg (1920x1080) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_Still_thm.png (80x40) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt ġ4000_TDE_Simulation_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt "But not everything emits light, so the only way to directly 'see' two black holes is through the gravitational waves they generate. "We've been relying on light to see everything out there," Scott Noble, also an astrophysicist at Goddard working on the simulation research, said in the same statement. The researchers hope to use this work with future projects like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission that the European Space Agency aims to launch next decade. That process helps researchers understand how the amount of gas involved in the merger and the angle at which scientists observe it modulate the observations telescopes would gather of any such collision.įor example, the simulations show that, when seen from the edge of the disk around the merger, one black hole will create an eyebrow-like feature alongside its companion because of how the clumps of glowing gas interact. Once the basic simulation is complete, scientists can change factors to see how the merger's signal would change. Related: Why black holes are the scariest things in the universe The magnetic and gravitational forces surrounding the black holes heat the gas up, causing it to glow in ultraviolet light and X-rays. In those simulations, each of the black holes is surrounded by a spherical shell of gas, and the pair itself is surrounded by a more distant ring connected to the two spherical shells by curved trails of gas. "We're trying to seamlessly and correctly glue together different codes and simulation methods to produce one coherent picture," Bernard Kelly, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland and collaborator on the project, said in the same statement. The supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*, has a mass of 4 million suns. Unlike stellar-mass black holes, which form from a collapsing star, supermassive black holes typically reside at the center of galaxies and can have masses millions or billions of times that of our sun.
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