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BedrockFarmer t1_ixriaaq wrote

Reply to comment by sticklebat in Hubble Telescope Observes Surreal Galactic Collision | The merging galaxies, heavily distorted by gravity, have formed an unusual celestial ring. by chrisdh79

Interesting. I wonder what happens when the event horizons from the two black holes touch.

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sticklebat t1_ixrn932 wrote

They merge into one black hole in a process that is very much non-destructive.

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BedrockFarmer t1_ixrorom wrote

Just read the short ESA post and the answer seems to be no one knows, but they have to projects planned to try and detect both gravitational waves and x-rays that are expected from such a merger.

I suppose as long as you are not in the path of the x-ray blast, there isn’t much to be concerned about.

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sticklebat t1_ixrsphd wrote

Well we know that when black holes meet they merge. We’ve observed black hole mergers and know that they release a huge amount of energy as gravitational waves, which are pretty harmless unless you’re right there.

Also, it’s believed that x-rays would be emitted, but that isn’t because of the event horizons touching, which is what you originally asked, but from the interactions of the black holes’ accretion disks and other nearby matter with each other and with the complex gravitation on the region around two merging black holes.

But yes even those x-ray bursts would be highly collimated and would only effect a small region directly in their path.

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