{ "id": 11086, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11086/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Simulations Uncover 'Flashy' Secrets of Merging Black Holes", "description": "According to Einstein, whenever massive objects interact, they produce gravitational waves — distortions in the very fabric of space and time — that ripple outward across the universe at the speed of light. While astronomers have found indirect evidence of these disturbances, the waves have so far eluded direct detection. Ground-based observatories designed to find them are on the verge of achieving greater sensitivities, and many scientists think that this discovery is just a few years away. Catching gravitational waves from some of the strongest sources — colliding black holes with millions of times the sun's mass — will take a little longer. These waves undulate so slowly that they won't be detectable by ground-based facilities. Instead, scientists will need much larger space-based instruments, such as the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, which was endorsed as a high-priority future project by the astronomical community. A team that includes astrophysicists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is looking forward to that day by using computational models to explore the mergers of supersized black holes. Their most recent work investigates what kind of \"flash\" might be seen by telescopes when astronomers ultimately find gravitational signals from such an event. To explore the problem, a team led by Bruno Giacomazzo at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and including Baker developed computer simulations that for the first time show what happens in the magnetized gas (also called a plasma) in the last stages of a black hole merger. In the turbulent environment near the merging black holes, the magnetic field intensifies as it becomes twisted and compressed. The team suggests that running the simulation for additional orbits would result in even greater amplification. The most interesting outcome of the magnetic simulation is the development of a funnel-like structure — a cleared-out zone that extends up out of the accretion disk near the merged black hole. The most important aspect of the study is the brightness of the merger's flash. The team finds that the magnetic model produces beamed emission that is some 10,000 times brighter than those seen in previous studies, which took the simplifying step of ignoring plasma effects in the merging disks. || ", "release_date": "2012-09-27T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:44.526816-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 472847, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011000/a011086/Black_Hole_merger_Still.png", "filename": "Black_Hole_merger_Still.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Supercomputer models of merging black holes reveal properties that are crucial to understanding future detections of gravitational waves. This movie follows two orbiting black holes and their accretion disk during their final three orbits and ultimate merger. Redder colors correspond to higher gas densities. This version has music and on-screen labels.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/P. Cowperthwaite, Univ. of MarylandFor complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 }, "main_video": { "id": 472844, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011000/a011086/11086_BH_Merger_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.mov", "filename": "11086_BH_Merger_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.mov", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Supercomputer models of merging black holes reveal properties that are crucial to understanding future detections of gravitational waves. This movie follows two orbiting black holes and their accretion disk during their final three orbits and ultimate merger. Redder colors correspond to higher gas densities. This version has music and on-screen labels.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/P. Cowperthwaite, Univ. of MarylandFor complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 }, "main_credits": { "Visualizations by": [ { "name": "Philip Cowperthwaite", "employer": "University of Maryland" } ] }, "progress": "Complete", "media_groups": [ { "id": 348045, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11086/#media_group_348045", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "According to Einstein, whenever massive objects interact, they produce gravitational waves — distortions in the very fabric of space and time — that ripple outward across the universe at the speed of light. While astronomers have found indirect evidence of these disturbances, the waves have so far eluded direct detection. Ground-based observatories designed to find them are on the verge of achieving greater sensitivities, and many scientists think that this discovery is just a few years away.

Catching gravitational waves from some of the strongest sources — colliding black holes with millions of times the sun's mass — will take a little longer. These waves undulate so slowly that they won't be detectable by ground-based facilities. Instead, scientists will need much larger space-based instruments, such as the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, which was endorsed as a high-priority future project by the astronomical community.

A team that includes astrophysicists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is looking forward to that day by using computational models to explore the mergers of supersized black holes. Their most recent work investigates what kind of \"flash\" might be seen by telescopes when astronomers ultimately find gravitational signals from such an event.

To explore the problem, a team led by Bruno Giacomazzo at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and including Baker developed computer simulations that for the first time show what happens in the magnetized gas (also called a plasma) in the last stages of a black hole merger.

In the turbulent environment near the merging black holes, the magnetic field intensifies as it becomes twisted and compressed. The team suggests that running the simulation for additional orbits would result in even greater amplification.

The most interesting outcome of the magnetic simulation is the development of a funnel-like structure — a cleared-out zone that extends up out of the accretion disk near the merged black hole.

The most important aspect of the study is the brightness of the merger's flash. The team finds that the magnetic model produces beamed emission that is some 10,000 times brighter than those seen in previous studies, which took the simplifying step of ignoring plasma effects in the merging disks.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 348046, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11086/#media_group_348046", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Supercomputer models of merging black holes reveal properties that are crucial to understanding future detections of gravitational waves. This movie follows two orbiting black holes and their accretion disk during their final three orbits and ultimate merger. Redder colors correspond to higher gas densities. This version has music and on-screen labels.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/P. Cowperthwaite, Univ. of Maryland

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By analyzing a supercomputer simulation of gas flowing into a black hole, the team finds they can reproduce a range of important X-ray features long observed in active black holes. Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., led the research.Black holes are the densest objects known. Stellar black holes form when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse, crushing up to 20 times the sun's mass into compact objects less than 75 miles (120 kilometers) wide. Gas falling toward a black hole initially orbits around it and then accumulates into a flattened disk. The gas stored in this disk gradually spirals inward and becomes greatly compressed and heated as it nears the center, ultimately reaching temperatures up to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit (12 million C), or some 2,000 times hotter than the sun's surface. It glows brightly in low-energy, or soft, X-rays.For more than 40 years, however, observations show that black holes also produce considerable amounts of \"hard\" X-rays, light with energy tens to hundreds of times greater than soft X-rays. This higher-energy light implies the presence of correspondingly hotter gas, with temperatures reaching billions of degrees. The new study involves a detailed computer simulation that simultaneously tracked the fluid, electrical and magnetic properties of the gas while also taking into account Einstein's theory of relativity. Using this data, the scientists developed tools to track how X-rays were emitted, absorbed, and scattered in and around the disk. The study demonstrates for the first time a direct connection between magnetic turbulence in the disk, the formation of a billion-degree corona above and below the disk, and the production of hard X-rays around an actively \"feeding\" black hole.Watch this video on YouTube. || ", "release_date": "2013-06-14T10:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:04.530319-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 468347, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011206/Black_Hole_Sim_Still.png", "filename": "Black_Hole_Sim_Still.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This animation of supercomputer data takes you to the inner zone of the accretion disk of a stellar-mass black hole. Gas heated to 20 million degrees F as it spirals toward the black hole glows in low-energy, or soft, X-rays. Just before the gas plunges to the center, its orbital motion is approaching the speed of light. X-rays up to hundreds of times more powerful (\"harder\") than those in the disk arise from the corona, a region of tenuous and much hotter gas around the disk. Coronal temperatures reach billions of degrees. The event horizon is the boundary where all trajectories, including those of light, must go inward. Nothing, not even light, can pass outward across the event horizon and escape the black hole.Music: \"Lost in Space\" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }