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360 points Eduard | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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perdomon ◴[] No.44564794[source]
What happens when black holes collide? Does one black hole “consume” the other? Do they become a larger black hole? Does it get more dense or just larger?
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hnuser123456 ◴[] No.44564906[source]
They become a larger black hole, mostly conserving mass, minus a few percent to gravitational waves. However, their mass is proportional to their radius, not volume, so it gets LESS dense. If you laid out a bunch of black holes in a line, just barely not touching, and let them merge, suddenly, the whole sphere of space enclosing the line becomes black hole. It also turns out that a black hole with the mass of the universe would have a volume about the size of the universe.
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pantalaimon ◴[] No.44565488[source]
> minus a few percent to gravitational waves

They actually convert up to 42% of their mass into energy, mostly radiation

https://youtu.be/t-O-Qdh7VvQ

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1. hnuser123456 ◴[] No.44565584{3}[source]
For normal matter inspiraling, yes, but a black hole which is falling into a black hole doesn't get to glow in gamma rays to try to escape :) they can only lose mass/energy by making splashes in spacetime itself (or hawking radiation)