I thought the gravitational waves were generated as the black holes rotated around one another, not (merely) as a consequence of the collision. Also, what kinds of interactions transfer the energy/mass of the black holes themselves into gravitational waves? I wasn't aware that any energy was "spent" creating a gravitational wave, much less three solar-masses worth, in this case.
On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:23 PM, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 7:30 PM, Terren Suydam <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> β> β >> As amazing as detecting the gravitational waves are, I'm actually more >> interested in what happens when those two black holes collide... is the >> resulting explosion entirely contained in the event horizon or is there any >> possibility that matter/energy can escape due to the high energies involved? >> > > βIt wasn't an explosion if anything it was an implosion and the results > were not contained within the event horizon, if they were we wouldn't have > been able to detect it. What we detected was a 36 solar mass black hole > merging with a 29 solar mass black hole and producing a 62 solar mass black > hole with the missing 3 solar masses being converted into energy in the > form of gravitational waves, which is what LIGO saw. It all happened in a > fifth of a second. If 3 solar masses had been converted to light instead of > gravitational waves during that fifth of a second it would have been > brighter than the rest of the universe put together. > > John K Clark > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
