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Two Black Holes to Merge
An anonymous reader writes "Astronomers have discovered two supermassive black holes that they predict will eventually collide.
As they say in bad SF, 'it could warp the fabric of space.'"
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EVERYTHING WITH MASS WARPS SPACE. The more massive it is, the more it warps space. Black holes warp space so much it "tears," for lack of a better term. Two black holes combining into one huge black hole isn't going to do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise.
Who the hell thinks this crap up?
Apparently, the theoretical astrophysicists thought it up. RTFA.
"The collision will create ripples in space, known as gravitational waves, that will spread across the universe, Centrella said."
I suppose it depends on how fast gravitational waves travel. Assuming they travel no faster than light speed, it is entirely possible that we wouldn't feel the effects of this until we actually see it.
Two black holes combining into one huge black hole isn't going to do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise. ...Except releasing gravity waves of strong enough magnitude to be detected from great distances.
Magnitude matters.
You're wrong. Objects being sucked into black holes emit large bursts of X-rays and other energy that can be measured with detectors and "seen."
Dr. Hasinger noted that humans on Earth would not have to worry about this galactic collision: they will not be around. The Sun is expected to blow up into a nova in three billion years, and perhaps then collapse to form a small black hole of its own, he said.
Um. No. The Sun is not massive enough to "blow up into a nova" or to collapse into a black hole. It will, most likely, expand into a red giant (and swallowing Mercury, Venus, and maybe the Earth). Whatever is left after that will shrink into a white dwarf.
The Sun will do no such thing. It'll blow up into a red giant, and then when the outer atmosphere drifts away it will leave behind a white dwarf. The Sun doesn't have remotely enough mass to form a black hole.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
AFAIK 'Gravity Waves' are not bound by the speed of light, they are instantaneous.
Quote from this page: "Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's general relativity theory which describes gravity as distortions, caused by mass, of the very fabric of the Universe - spacetime. They are ripples in the spacetime fabric that travel outwards at the speed of light."
However measurements are on the way to test this.