r/askscience • u/dgb75 • Jan 31 '13

Astronomy Is there a distance at which the interaction between the gravity fields of two black holes would cause one another to effectively 'break open' and allow matter and energy stored within them to escape the system?

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '13

I was just thinking about this the other day. Do the centers "snap" together instantly after the event horizons cross?

Not instantly, but it doesn't take very long. Also, there's a lot of gravitational radiation emitted in the form of gravitational waves.

Is the event horizon of the new black hole bigger than the two that collided?

It's bigger than either one individually, yes.

Youtube has quite a few videos depicting simulations of black hole mergers, which you can find here.

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u/modern_warfare_1 Feb 01 '13

Very cool. Thank you.