Progenitor stars Archives

June 5, 2020February 17, 2023 by Evan Gough

Supermassive Black Holes Grew by Consuming Gas and Entire Stars

This artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole and accretion disk, along with a relativistic jet emanating from its poles. Credit & ©: ESO/L. Calçada

Where do they come from, those beguiling singularities that flummox astrophysicists—and the rest of us. Sure, we understand the processes behind stellar mass black holes, and how they form from the gravitational collapse of a star.

But what about the staggering behemoths at the center of galaxies, those supermassive black holes (SMBH) that can grow to be billions of times more massive than our Sun?

How do they get so big?

February 5, 2020February 5, 2020 by Evan Gough

14% of all the Massive Stars in the Universe are Destined to Collide as Black Holes

This illustration shows the merger of two black holes and the gravitational waves that ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other. Could black holes like these (which represent those detected by LIGO on Dec. 26, 2015) collide in the dusty disk around a quasar's supermassive black hole explain gravitational waves, too? Credit: LIGO/T. Pyle — This illustration shows the merger of two supermassive black holes and the gravitational waves that ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other. Credit: LIGO/T. Pyle

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicted that black holes would form and eventually collide. It also predicted the creation of gravitational waves from the collision. But how often does this happen, and can we calculate how many stars this will happen to?

A new study from a physicist at Vanderbilt University sought to answer these questions.