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LIGO detects most massive black hole merger to date

(www.caltech.edu)
360 points Eduard | 1 comments | 14 Jul 25 20:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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MattPalmer1086 ◴[14 Jul 25 20:52 UTC] No.44565128[source]▶
I wonder what would happen if one black hole shot through another one at high relativistic velocity, instead of spiralling towards one another.
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fsmv ◴[14 Jul 25 20:53 UTC] No.44565138[source]▶
They would merge and produce a black hole with the sum of their momentums

Because nothing can ever leave the event horizon black holes are essentially perfectly sticky.

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mkw5053 ◴[14 Jul 25 21:03 UTC] No.44565268[source]▶
So, if two black holes, each with mass M, were moving at nearly the speed of light and collided head-on (resulting in a final velocity of zero), what would happen to all that momentum? Would the resulting black hole have a mass greater than 2M? If so, how and why would this occur?
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1. lorenzohess ◴[15 Jul 25 03:55 UTC] No.44567693[source]▶
They would cancel each other out and disappear, like a snake eating its own tail.