Black hole may have swallowed neutron star, say astronomers

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/03/astronomers-may-have-spotted-black-hole-swallowing-star

Black hole may have swallowed neutron star, say astronomers

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

Fri 3 May 2019 16.56 BST

Astronomers may have spotted a neutron star being swallowed by a black hole for the first time, marked by a belch of gravitational waves rippling across the cosmos.

If confirmed, the detection by the twin Ligo detectors in the US and the Virgo detector in Italy would be the first evidence that black holes and neutron stars can pair up in binary systems. The observations could also reveal new details about the nature of such dramatic mergers, including whether the neutron star was ripped apart before crossing the black hole’s threshold or whether it slid seamlessly into oblivion.

Patrick Brady, spokesman for the Ligo collaboration and professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said the signal from the possible collision, which took place on 26 April, needed further analysis before the team could be confident it was a real event rather than a random blip in the background noise. “It’s like listening to somebody whisper a word in a busy cafe, it can be difficult to make out the word or even to be sure that the person whispered at all,” he said. “It will take some time to reach a conclusion about this candidate.”

He put the chances of the observations being a glitch in the data at 14%.

Ligo and Virgo pick up the tiny ripples in the fabric of space and time that are sent out across the cosmos when two massive objects collide.

The possible detection came just a day after the Ligo and Virgo detectors identified a cataclysmic merger of two neutron stars for only the second time. Since the beginning of their third observational campaign on 1 April, the detectors have also spotted three black hole mergers.
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