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absrdbrdtrdmagrdIII t1_j0262xy wrote

Reply to comment by limacharley in What would 2 stars colliding at relativistic speeds do? (1 solar mass, 10% of c) by Party_9001

Could a black hole form?

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boundbylife t1_j02evd2 wrote

Maybe, but unlikely.

2M is considered the low end for the possibility of black hole formation. But for the resultant mass to be exactly 2M, you'd have to have both bodies' motion perfectly cancel each other - a glancing blow by either body would result in some of the mass being ejected from the system. And at a fraction of c, the fractional mass would quickly escape the larger mass's gravitational influence, so it wouldn't return and reform. The odds of two bodies having the exact opposite x, y, and z velocities is just, well, astronomical.

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Connect_Eye_5470 t1_j04q05e wrote

Don't know the math well enough to say definitively, but my gut says nearly impossible. The gravitational 'turbulence' would seem to guarantee you wouldn't get the spherical compression pattern to create a singularity.

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