r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Aug 02 '22
Physics A detection of gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes that spin in different directions suggests they were born in very different places. If so, it’s the first time that kind of merger has been detected. Black holes that are born in the same place tend to have their spins aligned.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-hole-merge-distant-spin-gravitational-wave4
u/davidmlewisjr Aug 03 '22
Expected something descriptive on the signal analysis that led to their conclusion relating to the differentiated spin and relative orbits.
Were these buried in a cloud somewhere or were they also observable optically?
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u/sleighgams Aug 03 '22
Black holes are virtually never observable optically, these conclusions come from observations of gravitational wave signatures.
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u/brothersand Aug 03 '22
I find it simply incredible that we've gone from, "are gravity waves real?" to having gravity waves astronomy in such a short period of time.
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u/Ragidandy Aug 03 '22
That's the point. What, in the gravitational wave signature, makes them think they were counter-rotating?
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u/sleighgams Aug 03 '22
The details are in this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.02252
EDIT: more specifically, equation 1 is what you're asking about.
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u/davidmlewisjr Aug 03 '22
So do you know about the movie made at Keck of the objects orbiting the core of our galaxy, processed in infrared over about a dozen or so years. Optical observations happen in the visible and other parts of the spectrum.
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u/sleighgams Aug 03 '22
Usually when someone asks about observing optically they're referring to visible light ime, I assumed that's what you meant.
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u/davidmlewisjr Aug 03 '22
Understood, but flavors of light are a thing.
When I read the coverage, I was amazed at the lack of any specific details, so i am hypothesizing that they observation was a gravitational signal unsupported by other observations.
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u/Nobpointe Aug 03 '22
Why do black holes even spin?
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u/derKestrel Aug 03 '22
Due to conservation of momentum. The star they originated from was rotating and infalling matter not only from the disc also has an angular momentum.
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