The size of a tennis ball. The mass of the Earth.
But that could change soon.
Current gravitational wave observatories are sensitive to the mergers of stellar-mass black holes. We’ve observed a few mergers involving neutron stars, but most have been between black holes on the order of tens of solar masses.
Another missing piece has just been added to our knowledge of cosmic phenomena. The LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA collaborations have announced the first detection of gravitational waves[1] resulting from the ‘mixed’ merger between a black hole and a neutron star.[2] The discovery, published on June 29, 2021 in Astrophysical Journal Letters, involves CNRS researchers working within the Virgo scientific collaboration.
Although it has only been only a few years since the very first observation of gravitational waves, the technique has yielded an extensive repertoire of phenomena involving massive cosmic objects. The LIGO and Virgo detectors have already observed mergers of pairs (or binaries) of black holes and, less frequently, of neutron stars. However, gravitational waves detected in January 2020 provide evidence of the existence of a new type of system. The signals, named GW200105 and GW200115 from their dates of detection, were produced by a process that had been predicted but never observed until now: the coalescence of ‘mixed pairs’ called NSBH pairs, each made up of a neutron star and a black hole.[3]
Gravitational waves contain valuable information about their source, such as the mass of the components making up the binary. Analysis of the signals revealed that GW200105 resulted from the merger, some 900 million years ago, of a black hole and a neutron star, respectively 8.9 times and 1.9 times more massive than the Sun, while GW200115 originated from an NSBH pair which coalesced around 1 billion years ago, with masses 5.7 and 1.5 times greater than the Sun. The difference in mass between the components of the system indicates that they are indeed mixed binaries: the mass of the heavier object corresponds to that of a black hole while the mass of the lighter object is consistent with that of a neutron star. The difference between the two masses could also explain why no light signals were detected by telescopes. When a neutron star approaches a black hole it can theoretically be torn apart by tidal forces, causing flares of electromagnetic radiation. However, in the two cases observed, the black hole, being much more massive, could have gobbled up the neutron star in a single mouthful, leaving no trace.
Black holes seem like the perfect spot for harvesting energy.
Researchers create a device to test a 50-year-old physics theory from the famed Roger Penrose.
Continue reading “Experiment proves old theory of how aliens might use black holes for energy” »
‘Magneto-rotational hypernova’ soon after the Big Bang fuelled high levels of uranium, zinc in ancient stellar oddity.
A massive explosion from a previously unknown source — 10 times more energetic than a supernova — could be the answer to a 13-billion-year-old Milky Way mystery.
Astronomers led by David Yong, Gary Da Costa and Chiaki Kobayashi from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) based at the Australian National University (ANU) have potentially discovered the first evidence of the destruction of a collapsed rapidly spinning star — a phenomenon they describe as a “magneto-rotational hypernova”.
It’s an astonishing achievement — and in an eyebrow-raising twist, Simons says he plans to live forever, by turning himself into a cyborg.
It sounds like Simons has thought out his plan.
“This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts,” Simons told De Telegraaf, adding that his goal is “immortality.”
Year after year, the explosive growth of computing power relies on manufacturers’ ability to fit more and more components into the same amount of space on a silicon chip. That progress, however, is now approaching the limits of the laws of physics, and new materials are being explored as potential replacements for the silicon semiconductors long at the heart of the computer industry.
New materials may also enable entirely new paradigms for individual chip components and their overall design. One long-promised advance is the ferroelectric field-effect transistor, or FE-FET. Such devices could switch states rapidly enough to perform computation, but also be able to hold those states without being powered, enabling them to function as long-term memory storage. Serving double duty as both RAM and ROM, FE-FET devices would make chips more space efficient and powerful.
The hurdle for making practical FE-FET devices has always been in manufacturing; the materials that best exhibit the necessary ferroelectric effect aren’t compatible with techniques for mass-producing silicon components due the high temperature requirements of the ferroelectric materials.
Study offers evidence, based on gravitational waves, to show that the total area of a black hole’s event horizon can never decrease.
There are certain rules that even the most extreme objects in the universe must obey. A central law for black holes predicts that the area of their event horizons — the boundary beyond which nothing can ever escape — should never shrink. This law is Hawking’s area theorem, named after physicist Stephen Hawking, who derived the theorem in 1971.
Continue reading “Hawking’s Black Hole Theorem Confirmed Observationally for the First Time” »
There are certain rules that even the most extreme objects in the universe must obey. A central law for black holes predicts that the area of their event horizons — the boundary beyond which nothing can ever escape — should never shrink. This law is Hawking’s area theorem, named after physicist Stephen Hawking, who derived the theorem in 1971.
Fifty years later, physicists at MIT and elsewhere have now confirmed Hawking’s area theorem for the first time, using observations of gravitational waves. Their results appear today in Physical Review Letters.
Though the laser beam eventually would be fired up in extremely short pulses – with no risk of a blackout on Earth – experts believe it would tear apart space-time for a brief moment to allow scientists to glimpse new physical phenomena that for now only exist in theories.
Technological leap would allow the firing of a laser 10000 times more powerful than all the electricity grids in the world combined.
New research shows how the fundamental law of conservation of charge could break down near a black hole.
Singularities, such as those at the centre of black holes, where density becomes infinite, are often said to be places where physics ‘breaks down’. However, this doesn’t mean that ‘anything’ could happen, and physicists are interested in which laws could break down, and how.
Now, a research team from Imperial College London, the Cockcroft Institute and Lancaster University have proposed a way that singularities could violate the law of conservation of charge. Their theory is published in Annalen der Physik.
