Effects of acceleration on black holes.

[Lord Flasheart]

If a black hole was sailing across the universe very near to the speed of light, what would the effects be on it? Would the event horizon change in shape, becoming more bulbous or less so in front of it, and would it live longer due to its relativistic velocity? And if you were traveling at around half-C toward the oncoming black hole, could you escape it? If you couldn't, would you be traveling faster than light for a brief few nano-seconds?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by Lord Flasheart
If a black hole was sailing across the universe very near to the speed of light, what would the effects be on it? Would the event horizon change in shape, becoming more bulbous or less so in front of it, and would it live longer due to its relativistic velocity? And if you were traveling at around half-C toward the oncoming black hole, could you escape it? If you couldn't, would you be traveling faster than light for a brief few nano-seconds?

You're describing relative effects, so I guess
it's a matter of who's looking.
The event horizon would indeed change shape
if for you the speed is relativistic.

Live long and prosper.

 

[Nereid]

Two galaxies, each with a supermassive black hole at its centre, collide.

What will happen?

If the black holes undergo a dance of death, how fast will they be moving, relative to each other (and also a star 100 light years away, at rest relative to the centre of mass of the black holes) when they are 1 light year apart? 1 light day? 1 light hour??

Assume the black holes each have a mass of 10 million Suns (10⁷_sol).

Using reasonable assumptions about the universe, how many such supermassive black hole mergers will be 'visible' to us on Earth each year (in the sense that we could detect the 'light' from such a merger from as far away as 10 billion light years)?