Artist's Illustration of Black Holes Merging (IMAGE)
Caption
Before the Merge: Spiraling Black Holes. This artist's conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO. The black holes -- which will ultimately spiral together into one larger black hole -- are shown orbiting one another in a plane. They are spinning in a non-aligned fashion, which means they have different orientations relative to the overall orbital motion of the pair. There is a hint of this phenomenon found by LIGO in at least one black hole of the GW170104 black-hole system.
Credit
LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)
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