Escape from black holes can reach truly cosmic speeds. No one will escape from them

Although we will not hear any of these explosions, no matter how carefully we listen, collisions have occurred in the universe since the beginning of its existence. After all, both galaxies collide there: huge with huge, dwarf with dwarf, and mega-galaxy with dwarf. Stars also happen together, although it seems practically impossible with sizes of millions of kilometers and separations of several light years. The planets themselves do happen after all. Here it is enough to remember something from our backyard, after all, the young Earth also collided with a planet the size of Mars. From this explosion, the moon was formed, which still orbits our planet today. There is no point in even talking about collisions of planets with smaller and larger asteroids, they happen almost constantly.

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Strange objects like black holes also collide with each other. Supermassive black holes collide at the end of a galaxy merger. Black holes of smaller stellar mass collide in binaries, for example. These collisions have their own distinct trajectory. When we’re dealing with two black holes, they usually crash into each other after a long gravitational dance. Two black holes orbit a common center of mass, emitting some of their energy into space in the form of gravitational waves. The decrease in energy makes the black holes gradually approach each other, and at the last moment they simply merge into a single black hole. This process applies to relatively simple binary systems.

However, let’s imagine a system of three black holes formed, for example, in the process of merging several galaxies at once. Mergers rarely have a similar mass. Most often, these are various blocks that determine the dynamics of the entire system. Imagine that we have a very massive black hole and two smaller ones orbiting it. Further, let’s imagine that the two smaller parts revolve around the larger one in opposite directions.

w Latest published article In the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, a team of astronomers sets out to discover what happens in such a system when two black holes collide. In a complex system, very strong gravitational waves may be emitted not equally in every direction, but preferentially in one direction. In such a situation, the new black hole created by the merger will be recoiled with tremendous speed in the opposite direction. Until now, scientists have assumed that the maximum speed that such an object can achieve is about 5,000 kilometers per second.

Also read: Supermassive black holes are the places scientists did not expect. The universe can be as full of holes as Swiss cheese

By analyzing the results of 1,300 different simulations of two black hole collisions, ranging from head-on collisions, through close flybys, to collisions in which black holes barely stick together, but still merge, scientists have determined that if two spinning black holes collide, In the opposite direction around another, more massive black hole, the recoil velocity can reach the highest value. In this particular case, a newly formed black hole could be released from the impact site at up to 28,500 km/s, roughly 10 percent faster. The speed of light.

It’s scary to think that such black holes go unnoticed somewhere out there rushing through space. I wonder if any of them have the solar system in their tracks.