Black Holes

[desperate]

I read today in New Scientist, that the gravitational waves detected were probably caused by two black holes spiraling into each other, and in doing so, they would lose around 3 'suns' worth of mass in about 0.2seconds - briefly outshining the entire rest of the universe.

Wow those numbers really are astronomical, what happens to the mass that is "lost" is it converted to energy? 3 solar masses in .2 of a second is going to be a lot of power

Desp

[desperate]

Oh dear what a saddo I am, I just couldn't leave it alone...........

in Joules it works out at 5.97^30*3*10^8*3*10^8 ............liberated in .2 of a second so if you multiply that by 3600*5 and then divide by 3,600,000 that I think would give you the energy in kWhr.................. give or take a brazzzillion or ten.


someone else care to crunch that,? even I ain't that sad

I love astronomy, it's just so astronomical

Desp

[Countrypaul]

I think that should be 5.97*10^30*3*10^8*3*10^8 though google shows the mass of the sun as 1.989 rather than 5.97

Yes I'm that sad as well.

[todthedog]

Quite a big number then!

[biff]

I don,t mind if you are a few point out,
                I forgive ya all and I am happy to just look up from time to time and see a star our two. I only need one star and the moon. The rest only complicate things.
    When my daughter was very small, she used to ask all kinds of questions about stars and galaxies. It was terrible. I heard about bears and ploughs and milky ways but I had,nt a notion you see, then she got a book on astronomy when she was six and that was my ignorance exposed. It was terrible, it was. Just imagine being preached to by a 6 year old.
  Then she grew up an d became an engineer and her kids are into everything. So they ask me a question and I pull their leg because I don,t know the answer to the question and then she starts on me," Now do you see what I had to put up with" (to the kids) Hands on hips.
 The kids look at me ,with a certain understanding, I have a look of a rabbit caught in the headlight of a car. It is tricky being a grandpa,especially if you forget to keep quiet.
  Modern kids are a very serious lot.When I was a kid, I would be sent to the shop for a long stand. So I would stand there with my hands in my short trouser pockets and the old lady would ask me, "was that long enough" and I would go Eh,!?. Then she would feel sorry for me and give me a gobstopper, one of the ones with that red dye that used to run all over your chin, like blood. Half way down the road i would swop the rest of the gobstopper for a marble, some gobstoppers had hollow centres and you had to ditch them before the hole appeared or you would get nothing for them. There was a lot of sucking and slurping in half a solid gobstopper and well worth a marble any day. Then if I was really bored,with nothing to do and no dough, I would go to the shop myself and say that I had been sent for a long stand. It did not work every time but it was worth the effort. Random success is 10 times the excitement.
  Half the time we carried all kinds of exotic extras, ringworm was a big scorer. mumps, Measels, chicken pox and of course big green snotty noses. There was a gang of about 20 of us. No creche would allow us in the door nowaday. There was not a single playstsation of PC to be heard of and we still had to discover TV,, You could just see the action through the snow. It was different back then.
  Twinkle twinkle little star, When I grow up I,ll buy a car, Up and down the road I.ll fly.and 50ty verses after that.
   Errr were wuz i,,,,,,,,,,? Ah Black holes.. yes, Calcutta has a big one.
                                                                     Biff

[desperate]

I think that should be 5.97*10^30*3*10^8*3*10^8 though google shows the mass of the sun as 1.989 rather than 5.97

Yes I'm that sad as well.

You're right of course, I ommited the ten, and one solar mass is 1.989*10^30kg but I multiplied by three as Ivan quoted three solar masses were destroyed, but hey what's a coupla solar masses between friends

Desp

[desperate]

I know exactly what you mean Biff, kids have a knack of asking the most penetrating questions in all innocense, sometimes we have quite a struggle with a public viewing night at the astronomical society.

Desp