Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 No matter how hard you try to push their boundaries, black holes always seem to preserve their modesty. Indiscreet astrophysicists have simulated the most violent collisions of black holes yet, and found that the resulting black hole still has an event horizon — the surface through which even light cannot escape and that hide black holes’ interiors.
An international team of researchers created a computer simulation of what they call the most violent collision imaginable: Two black holes of equal masses smashing into each other head-on, moving at close to the speed of light.
Previous studies have suggested that when black holes collide they merge into one larger black hole, radiating huge amounts of energy in the form of gravitational waves — ripples in the very shape of space — that travel at the speed of light. This study’s results were no exception. But the extreme velocities of the team’s simulated black holes led to waves of unprecedented energy. Up to 14 percent of the black holes’ masses, instead of just a few percentage points, was converted into gravitational waves, the team reports in an upcoming Physical Review Letters.
The simulations also showed that the resulting black hole conformed to a long-standing conjecture, often attributed to Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in England and called the cosmic censorship hypothesis.