NASA has released a video of two stars merging to become a black hole. The supercomputer simulation shows a cataclysmic cosmic collision.
Scientists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center produced the neutron star collision video that shows how enormous and violent the event was. The video begins with two neutron stars as big as cities forming after a series of supernova explosions. While heading toward each other, both become deformed with powerful tides, most likely causing their crusts to crack.
One is bigger than the other, and when they collide, the bigger neutron star disintegrates into the smaller one. The smaller star's particles then explode into the system while the bigger star absorbs the mass. This causes the bigger star to collapse and a black hole appears. The entire simulation only lasts a mere 20 milliseconds.
NASA said in a statement, "At 13 milliseconds, the more massive star has accumulated too much mass to support it against gravity and collapses, and a new black hole is born. The black hole's event horizon - its point of no return - is shown by the gray sphere. While most of the matter from both neutron stars will fall into the black hole, some of the less-dense, faster-moving matter manages to orbit around it, quickly forming a large and rapidly rotating torus."
The researchers headed up by Edo Berger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics believe that the neutron star mergers are capable of short gama-ray bursts (GRBs), which often last up to two seconds, but contain energy as strong as all the stars that our galaxy can produce in a year. Scientists from ground-based observatories have been notified so they can prepare the telescopes to study these GRBs.
According to Space.com, a group of astronomers discovered in 2013 that neutron star collisions create up to 10 moon masses of gold in the universe.
