The collision of two supermassive black holes is the most violent event that can occur in the universe; experts explore where a black hole's energy originates and what really happens when the two most powerful objects in the cosmos clash.
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LearningTranscript
00:00you might have seen a boxing match on tv maybe you've even seen one live but you have never
00:09seen a contest like this take your ringside seat to the fight of the cosmos this is going to be a
00:19wonderful fight to witness but you want to be a few million billion light years ago it's like
00:25being punched by the ghost of muhammad ali you don't even see it coming our fighters don't float
00:32like a butterfly or sting like a bee but they can deliver the ultimate knockout blow it is a soul
00:41chilling mind crushing amount of energy it's just unbelievable it's a fight between two super massive
00:49black holes forget about the world heavyweight championships this is the universe's heavyweight
00:55championships get ready for the heavyweight championship of the universe
01:012021 scientists detect a gigantic rumble deep in space
01:23a tsunami of gravitational waves giant ripples racing across the universe
01:30gravitational waves that big have to come from a giant cataclysmic event the universe is immense
01:40and full of very violent events that are happening every single day the universe is a scary place
01:47there is violence everywhere we look the growls and roars are clues about the ultimate cosmic brawl
01:57the most violent event in the universe
02:01but we don't know where they're coming from imagine a storm is coming in the middle of the night
02:10you can't see the storm you can't see the lightning but you can hear that rumble of the distant thunder and you know that it's coming
02:18this distant rumble of gravitational waves is like the footwork of heavyweights pounding the canvas of the boxing ring
02:28the waves are caused by something massive throwing its weight around
02:35it's not the first time we've detected gravitational waves
02:39our experiments have picked up the signal of two small stellar mass black holes colliding
02:48these waves are high-pitched and ring like a boxing bell
02:52the deep space growl is a much lower frequency like the roar of a crowd
02:58the difference in frequencies would be even more exaggerated than the difference between a sparrow chirping
03:08and the sound coming from a blue whale underwater it would be orders of magnitude more different than that
03:15the low frequency of the deep space rumble tells us that the waves are colossal
03:23imagine throwing a stone in the water and watching the little ripples come out
03:29now imagine throwing in a boulder a billion times more massive and watching the huge waves that come from that
03:36those are the waves that we're looking at
03:40these are more difficult to detect because the waves are so big one of their wavelengths is about 15 light years
03:48you could wait for 15 years and only have one wavelength go by the earth
03:55the waves are too big for an earthbound detector to pick up
03:59so to search for the source of these giant waves
04:03Chiara Mingarelli and her team use a detector already in space
04:08something large enough to pick up these galactic heavyweights
04:13spinning dead stars called pulsars
04:18our galaxy is awash with pulsars
04:22now they're called pulsars because they pulsate very regularly
04:26they're like cosmic lighthouses
04:28the lighthouse beams are so regular you can set your watch by them
04:32but when a huge gravitational wave hits them
04:37the timing gets knocked out of whack
04:39that pulsar is going to basically rock back and forth
04:43and that's going to change the timing of the pulses that we measure from that object
04:48to identify the source of the gravitational waves
04:53Chiara and her team measure the wobbles of 100 pulsars
04:58spread across light years of space
05:00it's like a tsunami and the pulsars are like the buoys on the surface of the ocean
05:07and as the tsunami passes by we can watch all of them moving and shifting up and down
05:13so our pulsar timing array is a gravitational wave warning system
05:19the pulsar array has identified the source of the tsunami of gravitational waves
05:26the only thing we know of that can make these very long wavelength
05:30very low pitch gravitational waves would be the collisions of supermassive black holes
05:36they're massive, they're huge, and they know how to throw their weight around
05:40supermassive black hole binaries produce the loudest gravitational waves in the universe
05:45the gravitational wave signal revealed something extraordinary
05:51it's not just gravitational waves coming from one black hole binary pair
05:57it's actually from the cosmic population of supermassive black hole binaries
06:02Kiara and her team think there may be tens of thousands of heavyweight bouts going on
06:09now the scientists want to pick out the sound of one single collision
06:15between two supermassive black holes from the background roar
06:20if we were to hear a supermassive black hole merger
06:27it would sound like a very low frequency growl
06:30that would last about 25 million years
06:35to date we haven't witnessed two supermassive black holes trading blows in real time
06:41but we have seen events leading up to the championship bout
06:46we've watched galaxies merge
06:49we've seen stars explode
06:51we've seen so many violent events in the universe
06:54but we haven't seen this more
06:56it's odd if you think about it
06:58we haven't seen the biggest one
07:00we haven't seen mergers between supermassive black holes
07:03but that may be about to change
07:06in the next five years we should be able to detect at least one supermassive black hole merger
07:23it'll be the most violent event in the cosmos
07:28let's put that in context
07:31we talk about how supernova are some of the most explosive energetic things in our universe
07:38well colliding supermassive black holes are a billion billion billion billion times more energetic than a supernova
07:48think about all of the light being emitted by everything in the universe
07:52every star every galaxy
07:54in one instant two supermassive black holes colliding could release a hundred million times
08:00imagine being punched in the face by the biggest baddest heavy weight of all time
08:07ouch
08:10this is way bigger than that
08:12where does all this energy come from
08:16surprisingly it originates in the smallest atoms in the cosmos
08:21in a story that dates back billions of years
08:25all the way to the birth of the universe
08:28we're taking our seats for the most violent event in the universe
08:43the collision of two supermassive black holes
08:46we've never witnessed this cosmic heavyweight championship
08:49but we can build up a picture of this epic fight
08:52by studying other weight classes with lighter fighters
08:592020
09:02the earthbound gravitational wave detector LIGO
09:06picks up the distinctive signal of a stellar mass black hole merger
09:11what we saw was a black hole of 85 times the mass of our sun
09:17and another black hole of 66 times the mass of our sun smashing together to create a combined black hole
09:24as someone who studies black hole mergers this was a really exciting event
09:30we're talking about the largest the heaviest the most massive black holes we have seen collide to date
09:37it may be the largest detection but on a universal scale it's still a small fry
09:44like lightweight boxers the two black holes circle each other and emit low energy gravitational waves
09:51this energy loss causes the black holes to spiral in together
09:58finally they collide in a cosmos shattering event
10:02forming a single black hole and releasing a huge blast of gravitational waves
10:10but when astronomers examine the single merged black hole something doesn't add up
10:16something doesn't add up
10:18if you take the combined mass of the two black holes you get to 150 times the mass of our sun
10:25but actually the black hole that's left only has a mass of 142 times the mass of our sun
10:33so the mass you have before the event does not equal the mass you have after the event
10:39what happened to that missing eight solar masses
10:43the way these black hole mergers work is very roughly five percent of the total mass of the system
10:49gets converted into energy
10:52it all comes down to E equals MC squared
10:57this is that beautiful equation that Einstein told us E equals MC squared
11:02E is the energy and M is the mass
11:05Einstein taught us that mass and energy are related
11:08in fact much of what we call mass is actually energy
11:13in this case the violence of the collision transforms 18,000 trillion trillion tons of matter
11:21into an explosion of gravitational waves
11:25in just a fraction of a second
11:27eight sun's worth of matter is converted into pure unadulterated energy
11:35the amount of energy released was so great that if you add up all the energy of all the stars burning in the universe
11:42it was bigger than that
11:44this event was a collision between relative lightweights
11:50two stellar mass black holes
11:53to understand heavyweight bouts
11:58we need to scale up
12:00to supermassive black holes
12:02in the universe of sports
12:07supermassive black holes are the heavyweight contenders
12:10with these big black holes
12:12size matters
12:14the bigger the better
12:15more mass means more energy
12:17which means more destructive power
12:19we don't need to look too far to find this devastating muscle
12:25this is M87 star
12:28one of the largest supermassive black holes in our cosmic zip code
12:34M87 star is huge
12:37it weighs about 6 billion solar masses
12:40about 6 billion suns
12:41and it's the size of our solar system
12:44a collision between 2 6 billion solar mass supermassive black holes
12:49would release around 5 times 10 to the power of 56 joules
12:54so what's that mean in real world terms?
12:58it's hard to use words to express how much energy this is
13:02and the numbers are so huge they're almost meaningless
13:04the only way I can really explain this is
13:07in physics we have these comparisons
13:13so we can get a mental picture
13:15but for something like this
13:16there is no mental picture
13:18that is so freaking big
13:20so where does this destructive mass and energy come from?
13:27it starts with the simplest ingredient
13:34hydrogen
13:36hydrogen
13:39hydrogen is the basic building block of the universe
13:43each atom is tiny
13:45but it contains a lot of energy
13:48hydrogen atoms contain a huge amount of energy
13:52just like all matter does
13:54and if it's unlocked in a certain way
13:56there can be huge explosions
13:58I mean you take the mass contained simply in my hand
14:04and you could blow up pretty much the entire earth
14:07matter has energy because it formed from energy
14:11in the early moments of the universe
14:13in many ways atoms are reservoirs of stored energy from the big bang
14:1913.8 billion years ago the universe ignites in a super hot ball of intense energy
14:30right after the big bang there's a tremendous amount of energy
14:33so much energy in fact that normal atoms can exist
14:36as that early energy starts to cool
14:40it can start to form primitive matter
14:43the universe takes that first matter and energy in the form of hydrogen atoms and starts the process of creating a super massive black hole
14:57step one build giant stars
15:00so gravity brings together gas dust hydrogen all of that stuff and as the clouds become more dense they attract even more material
15:12as they spin they get hotter and hotter
15:15and as that temperature and pressure increase
15:17finally it ignites nuclear fusion within the core and creates an actual star
15:23these huge stars are like cosmic rock stars
15:29they live fast and die young
15:31when they die they flame out in a huge explosion
15:37a supernova
15:40the entire star turns itself inside out
15:44and releases a shock wave going a good fraction of the speed of light
15:49and releases enough energy to just obliterate you
15:54if the dying star is more than 15 stellar masses its core collapses into a black hole
16:02it's kind of astounding what the universe is doing
16:05it's taking incredibly simple things like hydrogen atoms
16:08and using gravity to ultimately bring all this stuff together and make things like black holes
16:14i find it quite beautiful how our whole cosmic history is the story of little things coming together into bigger things
16:23but these stellar mass black holes are tiny flyweights
16:28to step up to the heavyweight division they have to grow billions of times more massive
16:33but how?
16:36how do black holes become supermassive?
16:40this is the age old question
16:42we're not really sure
16:44the current state of the art understanding of how black holes become supermassive is like
16:50we're confused we really don't know
16:53we still don't know exactly how they become so big
16:56so big
16:59but we do know that the process involves ultra-violence, death, and destruction
17:05how do supermassive black holes grow so big?
17:18that's a question that continues to baffle scientists
17:22in June of 2018 we spotted a clue
17:26an enormous flash of light
17:28AT 2018 COW nicknamed the cow was the brightest explosion ever recorded
17:36a huge amount of energy was released and then all of a sudden everything was gone
17:41this explosion was incredibly violent
17:44at first it was thought to just be a supernova, a flash of light
17:47but over time it became clear that this was something much more powerful
17:51it was too bright basically to be a supernova
17:55it was extremely bright
17:56and it didn't fit into any of our theoretical understandings of how bright supernova should be
18:02one explanation is that the light may have come from a black hole
18:07feeding on a small white dwarf star weighing less than the sun
18:12what really seemed to fit that model was a star getting too close to a black hole and getting ripped apart
18:19and then everything going right down the black hole
18:23a black hole gains mass every time it eats something
18:26that's how they grow
18:28whether it's a gas cloud or a star or another black hole
18:31once it gains that mass, it's gained that mass
18:37people often ask me, what happens to the mass that falls into a black hole?
18:40does it go to another dimension?
18:42and the answer is no, it's still there
18:44it's inside the black hole
18:46they get bigger, they grow
18:49could this be how weak flyweight black holes turn into mean and powerful supermassive heavyweights?
18:57the star is like protein
18:59and the black hole is like a boxer
19:02and so the more protein they get, the more stars they consume
19:07the stronger they get, the more destructive they can be
19:09but there's a problem with the training program explanation
19:16eating small stars one at a time
19:20just doesn't add enough mass fast enough
19:23to grow the supermassive black holes that we see today
19:26that's like boxers eating just one egg per day
19:30like them, black holes need much bigger meals
19:36and in 2020, we detected one
19:40a sudden burst of gravitational waves from a black hole
19:45gorging on the remains of a dead star
19:48called a neutron star
19:52for scientists, January 2020 was exciting
19:56because it was the first time LIGO observed
19:59the very first black hole neutron star merger
20:03neutron stars may be small
20:06but they are inconceivably dense
20:09now you want to talk about an enormous amount of mass
20:11let's talk about a neutron star
20:13that's one heck of a snack
20:15the black hole swallowed the neutron star in one gulp
20:19so this black hole ate a whole neutron star
20:25which means it gained just over 10% of its entire body weight in one shot
20:3010% doesn't sound like a lot
20:33but then we detected another black hole
20:36swallowing a neutron star just 10 days later
20:40suggesting that there are lots of black holes
20:43bulking up across the universe
20:46but even with this extreme weight gain
20:48it's probably not enough to get super massive
20:51they need to eat even more
20:54if you're a black hole and you want to get bigger
20:57your best bet is to merge with another black hole
21:00but there's a catch
21:03so if you're a flyweight black hole
21:06and you try to eat all of the other flyweight black holes
21:11there's just not enough time in the history of the universe
21:14for you to become a super massive black hole
21:17but you can make it to middleweight
21:20so exactly how super massive black holes grow so large
21:25remains an open question
21:26we do know that the process started in the very early universe
21:31with a journey from the lightest element to the most intimidating object in the cosmos
21:37it's so interesting how the cosmos can take something as simple as a hydrogen atom
21:42and build stellar mass black holes
21:45and intermediate mass black holes
21:47and even super massive black holes
21:50out of these really densely compressed hydrogen atoms
21:54it's really a wonder
21:57now 13.8 billion years after the big bang
22:01super massive black holes feed and flex their muscles
22:06ready to fight for the heavyweight championship of the universe
22:10these super massive black holes have been bulking up since the age of the universe
22:15these black holes have been getting ready for the fight
22:19they have been bulking up they have been eating entire stars as snacks
22:24to get the mass they need
22:26so they are ready to rumble
22:28it's not the rumble in the jungle
22:31this is the battle to be the boss of the cosmos
22:35super massive black hole versus super massive black hole
22:40fought in the grandest arena
22:43the fighters entourage their host galaxies escort them to the ring
22:50but even this journey is violent triggering starbursts jets and carnage
23:05it's the buildup before the heavyweight fight of the cosmos
23:10the fighters entourages their galaxies carry their super massive black holes to the ring
23:17things are about to get nasty
23:20galaxies can look calm and serene but they can get into pretty big scraps
23:27there's a lot of them that are totally messed up and are clearly merging with each other
23:32when galaxies fight their gravity pulls on each other
23:37when galaxies fight their gravity pulls on each other
23:41twisting and distorting their structures
23:44the galaxy will be warped and morphed into different ways
23:48that we can only imagine how twisted it would be
23:53this violent cosmic tango brings the two super massive black holes together
23:58it's elegant it's beautiful it's this billion year choreographed dance
24:06that is entirely conducted by gravity
24:09the two heavyweight fighters approach each other
24:15their feet beat out a rhythm on the canvas
24:18just like circling black holes release low energy gravitational waves
24:22you have these giant beasts that are stalking around each other
24:29and as they do they create these gravitational waves
24:35June 2021 astronomers photograph a galactic collision
24:41and witness a spectacular pre-fight fireworks show
24:45one of the amazing things that can happen when galaxies collide
24:50is they can create tremendous starbursts
24:53there is a big inrush as all of the gas follows that gravity
24:57as the gas gets hotter and denser it creates shock waves
25:02and each shock wave actually creates a new generation of stars
25:06going out around the core of the galaxy
25:08the sudden starburst lights up the merging galaxies
25:11the inrushing gas also fuels the prize fighters
25:16the supermassive black holes spiraling towards the merging galactic center
25:22if there's a big supermassive black hole
25:27it suddenly finds it surrounded by loads of gas and other material it can eat
25:33it goes on a kind of feeding frenzy
25:36if you're a hungry supermassive black hole
25:39then this is your lunchtime buffet
25:42not all the gas falls into the supermassive black hole
25:47other parts of the matter actually gets caught up in what we call an accretion disc
25:52rotating around the outside of the black hole
25:55this bright vortex spins around the supermassive black hole
26:00at over 2 million miles an hour
26:01the material in the disc rubs against itself
26:06creating friction
26:08friction generate heat
26:10if I rub my hands together
26:12they get a little bit warm
26:14if I rub my hands together at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour
26:19it's going to get very very very warm
26:21the accretion disc heats up
26:25blasting out intense light
26:27in 2020
26:29NASA's Hubble Space Telescope saw two fueled up supermassive black holes lighting up for the fight
26:38we call them quasars
26:42Quasars are a subclass of very bright black holes that are emitting huge amounts of power
26:50so these can be seen at the far reaches of the universe
26:54black holes these so-called dark things
26:59when they're growing at a very high rate
27:02are some of the brightest lights in the universe
27:05to date we've detected over a hundred pairs of quasars in the cores of merging galaxies
27:12we think they will all eventually collide
27:16but before they do
27:19they'll put on a spectacular and lethal light show
27:23a common theme in science fiction are different kind of jets of energy or beams that people shoot out of their eyes or their hands
27:32well supermassive black holes do that too
27:35firing out relativistic jets
27:37when those jets fire up
27:41that's when you're talking about superstar really really bright lights and at this point the galaxy is lit up and ready to go
27:50these are the spotlights on Madison Square Garden
27:56this is telling you that the event is going down
27:59a single supermassive black hole jet will produce more energy in a second than the sun will produce in its entire 10 billion year lifetime
28:16imagine a laser of radiation that is light years in length and across
28:22that's what we're talking about
28:24this thing would fry a planet
28:25this is no pre-fight hype
28:27this is no pre-fight hype
28:29in February 2020 we saw the impact of a jet
28:34so in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster there's an enormous void that is 15 times wider than the Milky Way galaxy
28:42and this has all been sculpted carved by jets from a supermassive black hole
28:48it's like the scar on the universe it's a million light years across it's huge
28:52scientists calculate the impact of the jet hitting the cluster was equivalent to a 20 billion billion megaton TNT explosion every thousandth of a second for 240 million years
29:07the relativistic jet's immense power may be a showstopper but when it's time to land the killer punch supermassive black holes draw on an even more powerful force gravity
29:25jets are very powerful but really only on a relatively small scale when you're talking about cosmic scale gravity always wins nothing is as powerful as gravity
29:35the immense gravity the immense gravity of the circling supermassive black holes drags them ever closer
29:42but will it ultimately bring them together or blast them apart
29:46or blast them apart
29:57across the universe supermassive black holes do get out
30:02in the cosmos's version of heavyweight superfights
30:07supermassive black holes are merging around us all the time
30:10it's only our ability to detect them that's preventing us from seeing them
30:17scientists have identified at least a dozen pairs of supermassive black holes circling each other
30:24we have some hints of some galaxies where we think it might happen
30:29where we see two glowing black holes that are getting very close
30:32but not all these matches will end with a knockout
30:38black hole collisions happen all the time but they don't always go according to plan
30:44when black holes come together really strange things can happen
30:50the Hubble Space Telescope spots something strange in a distant galaxy called 3C 186
30:57it's a quasar an active supermassive black hole
31:02but it's in the wrong place
31:06in nearly every galaxy we see the supermassive black hole sits right at the center
31:12and that makes sense
31:14because that's the only place with enough material to power them
31:18but in 3C 186 that's not what we see
31:21the supermassive black hole is displaced from the center
31:23and not a little bit it's 35,000 light years
31:28so to see a quasar 35,000 light years away from the core means something really violent had to happen there
31:35the quasar is racing away from the center of the galaxy at over 4 million miles an hour
31:41that is insane
31:44the magnitude of the energy and the forces required are just something unimaginable
31:49so what can kick a giant black hole out of a galaxy?
31:56what has that kind of power?
31:58the answer is a clash that wasn't evenly matched
32:02the two supermassive black holes were different sizes
32:07a middleweight boxer taking on a heavyweight
32:11when we humans set up a fight we like to make it fair because it's sport
32:16nature doesn't care about sport it's survival of the fittest
32:20this is not a fair fight
32:22it's over before it even begins
32:24one punch and it's a KO
32:29as these two black holes are merging
32:31there's one really small black hole and one much bigger black hole
32:35the whole system wobbles around
32:37and it can get more of a gravitational wave kick in one direction than the other
32:40and that's momentum that's a push that's enough energy to kick the black hole out
32:47the lopsided gravitational punch sends the merged supermassive black hole on a one way trip to oblivion
32:56this tells us that gravitational waves can be tremendously powerful
33:01they can move a supermassive black hole out from the center of a galaxy and send it on its way
33:08it just carries on drifting there's no way to stop it
33:12and who knows in a few million years it could just drift entirely out of its galaxy and go floating off into deep space
33:20in some matches the fighters don't even land a punch
33:25scientists spot a supermassive black hole named b3 1715 plus 425
33:35this black hole is strange
33:39stripped of all its stars it hurdles through empty space at four and a half million miles an hour
33:43the first thing that draws our attention is this faint trail of debris across the sky
33:53there is actually a trail leading back to the center of the galaxy
33:57it's kind of like a dump truck right that's filled with dirt driving down the highway
34:01and the dirt's flying off behind it this is a naked black hole
34:05the exposed supermassive black hole has lost its stars and galaxy
34:09a champion stripped of its fans and entourage
34:14so what event is powerful enough to strip a supermassive black hole of its entire host galaxy
34:22that has to be something really big
34:27b3 is a smallish galaxy and it got into a scrap with a much bigger one
34:31the stronger gravity of the bigger galaxy stripped the stars away from that black hole and shot it out
34:35typically in the universe when something's bigger and more massive it wins
34:40so this is true for galaxies a big galaxy versus a little galaxy put your money on the big one
34:48but when two evenly matched heavyweights enter the ring
34:53it's time for the main event
34:57a clash of the titans
35:01i grew up watching boxing with my dad so i've always been a boxing fan
35:06and i love a great battle and what's a bigger battle than a head-on collision between two supermassive black holes
35:14if you're a boxing fan this is the big one
35:18we are ready we are on the edge of our seats
35:20we've got two supermassive black holes each one is in their corner and they're getting ready for the fight of the century
35:30i mean they're just gonna go at it like goosh goosh i would watch that i'd pay for you that
35:36it doesn't get any better than this
35:38these are prize fighters at the top of their game
35:41they're trained to a tee they're beefed up
35:44they are ready to rumble
35:46we are just seconds away
35:48from the fight of the cosmos
35:51welcome to the heavyweight championship of the universe
36:06weighing in at eight billion solar masses
36:10we have the galactic destroyer
36:13m101 star
36:15and in the other corner
36:17at a punishing 7.8 billion suns
36:20the star crusher
36:22nsc 47 star
36:24they are pumped
36:26and ready to rumble
36:28so here it is
36:30we're finally here
36:32the crowd is roaring
36:33the bell has rung and the fighters are approaching each other
36:38they are ready to go at it
36:40let's have a clean fight fellas
36:43touch hands
36:45and go back to your corners
36:47round one
36:49the two heavyweights circle
36:51testing the other's defenses
36:53the black holes are going to do what the boxers are going to do
36:56they're going to circle each other
36:58and they're going to orbit each other
36:59and they're going to size each other up
37:00once these two supermassive black holes are close enough
37:05their gravity inexorably is going to draw them together
37:10as the two supermassive black holes get closer
37:14they throw a few exploratory jabs
37:19triggering bursts of gravitational waves that warp everything in their path
37:25these enormous gravitational waves are completely deforming the fabric of space-time around them
37:33not just a little bit but a lot
37:35it's like feeling the fighters approach in the boxing ring
37:40from the next town over
37:42next the supermassive black holes gravity throws in a couple of right hooks straight into the accretion discs
37:56what could happen is that they start to form like an angle grinder
38:02you'll see sparks flying as they try to merge and form a new single accretion disc
38:09when those accretion discs collide the whole thing is going to light up like the 4th of July
38:14spiraling in at millions of miles an hour
38:19the heavyweight fighters get close delivering punishing body blows
38:23the event horizons the surface of the supermassive black holes are about to touch
38:34in their final moments these two supermassive black holes are orbiting each other
38:40at a significant fraction of the speed of light
38:43and their event horizons will touch
38:45and they'll eventually merge into one new supermassive black hole
38:52you might think don't they bump into each other like bowling walls
38:56no they don't because what we're calling the edge of the black hole is actually not a thing
39:00that's just the surface around the black hole
39:04gravity is so strong that nothing can come out
39:06the two supermassive black holes finally merge
39:09releasing around 5% of the mass they've gathered over billions of years
39:16in an enormous burst of gravitational waves
39:20the amount of energy that we're talking about
39:23there's nothing to compare it to it's mind crushing
39:28there's really almost no point in thinking about it
39:31it's just not something I think that I can wrap my head around
39:34coming from where I come from
39:35you know you don't show weakness so I'm not going to say that the collision of two black holes
39:41is more powerful than one of my punches
39:43but
39:45it's close
39:47the gigantic and powerful gravitational waves race out from the collision zone
39:54leaving a single merged black hole
39:58the supermassive black hole after it merges
40:01permanently deforms the fabric of space time around it
40:05and this deformation travels out at the speed of light
40:08the surviving 95% of mass from the two colliding supermassive black holes
40:15is now locked in a single ultramassive black hole
40:20the undisputed super heavyweight champion of the universe
40:25at least for now
40:27it seems the universe is always upping the ante
40:29could there be something even more violent we haven't even discovered yet
40:34the universe keeps wanting to give us something more violent all the time
40:38energy locked in hydrogen atoms formed at the birth of the universe
40:44is finally released in the violent collision
40:48and builds an ultramassive black hole
40:51this is one of the most beautiful stories in our universe
40:58you have the most energetic collision the most amount of energy released
41:02the most violent event can trace its origins to the humble hydrogen atom
41:07hydrogen atom
41:10so we have our champion
41:13matter compressed and then smashed together by supermassive black holes
41:18creates the most violent event in the universe
41:21i don't think there's a contest
41:24the supermassive black hole collisions are the most energetic
41:27just like mind-numbingly large amounts of energy in these collisions
41:36a merger of two supermassive black holes is at the absolute top-end extreme of that
41:43for all possible events in the entire universe
41:45a supermassive black hole merger is the most violent thing that we can observe in the universe
41:51a supermassive black hole merger is the most violent thing that we can observe in the universe