Black Holes are objects with such immense gravitational fields that nothing can escape from its attraction, including light. Black Holes range in size from as low as few solar masses (e.g. V4641 Sgr), to billions of solar masses (e.g. at the center of our Milky Way galaxy). Now for the first time, the birth of a Black Hole has been captured. According to Neil Gehrels of NASA, the Swift orbiting observatory detected the Gamma Ray Burst of the collision between two dense Neutron Stars (stars composed entirely of neutrons), which combined to create a Black Hole.
Swift Observatory (Courtesy: MSSL)
The GRB created by the collision was seen across the whole universe. The satellite recorded the x-rays from the collision, but the visible light was too faint to be detected by the satellite. But ground-based telescopes were able to see the aftermath of the collision. The collision matched what theorists had predicted would happen when two neutron stars collide, helping solve a 30 year old mystery.
Swift Observatory (Courtesy: MSSL)
The GRB created by the collision was seen across the whole universe. The satellite recorded the x-rays from the collision, but the visible light was too faint to be detected by the satellite. But ground-based telescopes were able to see the aftermath of the collision. The collision matched what theorists had predicted would happen when two neutron stars collide, helping solve a 30 year old mystery.
Birth Of A Black Hole
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and the 30 year old mystery being?
(i saw horizon last week on bbc, where they had mentioned gamma rays bursts some years back and the different theories and finally i think they arrived at star nurseries..
are both these gamma ray bursts similar? )
There are different possible causes to GRBs. One is the explosion of supernovae, which can blast powerful GRBs into space. Another is formation of black holes (like in this post), or collision/merging of two or more black holes. There might be other exotic blasts/collisions that we do not know much about.
and btw the sci news links on the page are also interesting:).
How sure are they? There are a number of very widely supported theories that Black Holes cannot form now because there is not enough energy. And that all the Black Holes in the Universe (not that we know how many there are) were formed at the Big Bang. Could this merely be a Superdense Neutron Star?
Quote from the ABC story. He's the scientist reporting it, and they found it early yesterday morning (not much time for analysis so far then).
Are there any other sources for this story? The story on ABC doesn't give anywhere near enough information, and refers to fairly sensationalist quotes like the one above with no supporting evidence. I'm not calling the guy a liar (obviously), but it is easy to see what you want to see (and interpret how you want to interpret).
Unless there is a lot more evidence, I'm still in the "can't form due to insufficient energy" camp on Black Holes. But I'm prepared to be wrong.
Where did you get that?! According to classical physics, a black hole would form when the mass exceeds a few solar masses (Chandrasekhar got his Nobel Prize for determining this limit, which is around 5 solar masses). Now in Quantum physics, there are some other constraints, and black holes can evaporate and so on, but no one (at least no one who is well known or peer-reviewed) is saying that black holes cannot form!!
Large black holes couldnt have formed during the big bang, as the universe wasnt large enough at that time to support so many big black holes. There is a possibility that miniature black holes were created, but they are different from the large black holes we see at the cores of galaxies such as ours.
Could this merely be a superdense neutron star? I dont think so, as the masses of the two neutron stars must have already been computed (by the way they revolved around each other), and if the total mass exceeded a few solar masses, they will form a black hole. Also, it matches all the theoretical predictions, so it is very likely that this is a black hole that was formed.
Abt. other sources... check this one from NASA.
That's the problem with not being a scientist, and not being my field, etc. I don't remember the sources! I'll do some digging and see if I can find them, but I do accept what you're saying (I'm sure you know better than I on this one).
Hey! Crapper has found his way here!
And is black hole formation the ONLY theory that sez that there should be a visible light after glow for a GRB? How conclusive are these? Saw its article on space.com. Didnt convince me that a black hole birth could be the only reason
Gindy: First time witnessed, yes. But many more GRBs take place on average than are detected. Pictures: I think they might release a afterglow shot, but since the energy decayed very rapidly, it might not be visually spectacular. But I might be wrong. More details on the burst is here.
NLI: Yaa.. a spoonful of neutron-star matter weighs about a ton or so! It sounds extra-ordinary, but you must remember that atoms are mostly empty spaces (if nucleus is a grain of salt, the atom will be the size of a house!!), and if all space is filled with neutrons, you get neutronal matter.
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