Cosmic gulp - Astronomers observe black hole swallow neutron star

They saw the exact same thing on the opposite side of the universe ten days later. Both cases show that a neutron-star -- one teaspoon of which would be a billion tonnes -- orbits closer to the point of no return, a dark hole. Eventually, they collide and the neutron star disappears in a gobble.

Astronomers were able to witness the 500 last orbits before the neutron star was swallowed. This process took less than a minute, and briefly produced as much energy as all of the visible light in our universe.

Patrick Brady, an astrophysicist from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, said that "it was just a large quick (gulp), gone." The black hole "gets the nice dinner of a neutron Star and becomes just a little more massive."

The energy bursts from collisions were first discovered by detectors on Earth when they spotted the gravitational waves of the mergers, cosmic energetic ripples that soared through time and space as first proposed by Albert Einstein. Each of them came from more that a billion light-years distant. They each came from more than one billion light-years away.

Astronomers have seen gravitational waves form two black holes colliding with one another and two neutron star colliding with one another, but this is the first time that they've seen one of them colliding together.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars1.html#?:text=Credit%3A%20NASA%2FGoddard%20Space%20Flight and%20electron%20into%20a%20neutron. ">Neutron stars are the remains of large stars that have died in supernova explosions. Brady stated that although they are dense, they only have approximately 1.5 to 2 times the mass as our sun. However, their size is 6 miles (10 km) in diameter. Starry black holes are also known as black holes. They form when a larger star collides into itself, creating something so powerful that no light can escape.

Scientists believe there should be many of these black hole and neutron star pairings. However, they have yet to find one in our galaxy.

Marc Kamionkowski from Johns Hopkins University, an astrophysicist, said that "this is very cool." He wasn't involved in the research. This will allow astronomers to predict the abundance of these pairings, he said.