Subj : Daily APOD Report To : All From : Ben Ritchey Date : Sun Apr 14 2019 10:49:45 Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2019 April 14 Simulation: Two Black Holes Merge Simulation Credit: Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes Project [2] Explanation: Sit back and watch two black holes merge. Inspired by the first direct detection [3] of gravitational waves in 2015, this simulation video plays [4] in slow motion but would take about one third of a second if run in real time. Set on a cosmic stage the black holes are posed in front of stars, gas, and dust. Their extreme gravity lenses the light from behind [5] them into Einstein rings [6] as they spiral closer and finally merge into one. The otherwise invisible gravitational waves [7] generated as the massive objects rapidly coalesce cause the visible image to ripple and slosh both inside and outside the Einstein rings [8] even after the black holes [9] have merged. Dubbed GW150914 [10] , the gravitational waves detected by LIGO [11] are consistent with the merger of 36 and 31 solar mass black holes at a distance of 1.3 billion light-years. The final, single black hole has 63 times the mass of the Sun [12] , with the remaining 3 solar masses converted into energy in gravitational waves [13] . Since then the LIGO [14] and VIRGO [15] gravitational wave observatories have reported several more [16] detections of merging massive systems, while last week the Event Horizon Telescope [17] reported the first horizon-scale image [18] of a black hole. Tomorrow's picture: jovian mirage ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- < [19] | Archive [20] | Submissions [21] | Index [22] | Search [23] | Calendar [24] | RSS [25] | Education [26] | About APOD [27] | Discuss [28] | > [29] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [30] (MTU [31] ) & Jerry Bonnell [32] (UMCP [33] ) NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [34] . NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [35] A service of: ASD [36] at NASA [37] / GSFC [38] & Michigan Tech. U. [39] ---------- Site notes: [1] archivepix.html [2] http://www.black-holes.org/ [3] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211 [4] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v3 [5] ap141026.html [6] ap080728.html [7] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring [9] https://www.black-holes.org/the-science-numerical-relativity/ numerical-relativity/gravitational-lensing [10] http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/ PhysRevLett.116.061102 [11] ap160211.html [12] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/ [13] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/gravitational-waves [14] https://www.ligo.org/ [15] http://www.virgo-gw.eu/ [16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravitational_wave_observations [17] https://eventhorizontelescope.org/ [18] ap190411.html [19] ap190413.html [20] archivepix.html [21] lib/apsubmit2015.html [22] lib/aptree.html [23] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search [24] calendar/allyears.html [25] /apod.rss [26] lib/edlinks.html [27] lib/about_apod.html [28] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=190414 [29] ap190415.html [30] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html [31] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ [32] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html [33] http://www.astro.umd.edu/ [34] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [35] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html [36] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [37] https://www.nasa.gov/ [38] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ [39] http://www.mtu.edu/ --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 (Windows/32) * Origin: FIDONet - The Positronium Repository (1:393/68) .