2 Black Holes: What Would Happen?

[hell18]

when there are 2 black holes and 1 is smaller than the other and they move toward each other. what would the effect be? would they combine and become 1 big black hole or would the smaller black hole just disappear?

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by hell18
when there are 2 black holes and 1 is smaller than the other and they move toward each other. what would the effect be? would they combine and become 1 big black hole or would the smaller black hole just disappear?

they would merge into a black hole with larger mass

some energy would escape as gravitational waves
(repercussions of the merger)
but except for that, the mass of the combined hole would
be the sum of the two masses when they were still separate
and far from each other.

 

[jcsd]

Yep, they would coalesce into one larger, black hole conserving properties such as mass angular momentum and charge.

As Marcus said tey would produce a lot of gravational radiation as well, which means that gravity wave detectors are set up to look for just this kind of event.