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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Black hole total recoil

A black hole created by the collision of two parent bodies can rebound at a speed of more than 28,000 kilometres per second.
Colliding black holes, illustration of the merger of two black holes.

The collision of two black holes (artist’s impression) can cause them to merge into one, which can recoil at high speed if conditions are right. Credit: Victor De Schwanberg/SPL

As two black holes merge into one, they release a burst of gravitational waves. Sometimes these waves are emitted in a preferential direction — causing the merged black hole to recoil at high speed in the opposite direction from the waves’ preferred one. Physicists have now estimated that this recoil speed can be as fast as one-tenth of the speed of light1.

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Nature 620, 925 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02653-y

References

  1. Healy, J. & Lousto, C. O. Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 071401 (2023).

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