By Nikk Ogasa
Collisions between black holes can launch newly melded cosmic sinkholes at speeds up to nearly one-tenth the speed of light, researchers report August 18 in Physical Review Letters. Moving that fast — about 28,500 kilometers per second — it would take about 13 seconds to complete the average trip from Earth to the moon. The findings may help researchers figure out how much energy can get released when black holes converge.
Black holes merge after coming so close together that they become ensnared in each other’s gravitational pull. The couple enters a cosmic waltz, spiraling ever tighter and stirring up ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves (SN: 6/28/23; SN: 1/21/21).