Linked Questions
19 questions linked to/from What is the difference between the terms collision and merger? How are they used differently in Astronomy?
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How do we know that supermassive black holes can gain mass by means other than merging with other supermassive black holes?
I just stumbled across the following answer "update" from 2013:
This just in, recent observations have ruled out the possibility that SMBHs gain mass only through merging with other black ...
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Why can't supermassive black holes merge? (or can they?)
The CNet article Astronomers discover two supermassive black holes in a death spiral links to Discovery of a Close-separation Binary Quasar at the Heart of a z ~ 0.2 Merging Galaxy and Its ...
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How far from Betelgeuse is its habitable zone?
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant or hypergiant in the constellation Orion. It is one of the biggest and brightest stars seen from the Earth, and is expected to soon go supernova. The habitable zone, or ...
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Why do we believe that the super massive black holes at the centers of two merging galaxies would themselves merge?
When listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos of astronomers discussing galaxy mergers, I often hear talk about how the super massive black holes at their centers will themselves merge during ...
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What would happen if a Sun-like star were to consume a Jupiter-like planet?
A substantial number of discovered exoplanet systems are likely contain more than one gas giant with distances far closer to the star than in our solar system.
It is known that in solar system ...
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What are the differences between astronomy and cosmology?
Are astronomy and cosmology same? If not, what are the differences? And which one is greater in terms of subject area?
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Are there galaxies with 2 or more super massive black holes orbiting each other?
We now know that most stellar systems have 2 or more stars orbiting each other. Do we know of any galaxies which have 2 or more super massive black holes orbiting each other? Is it possible?
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Milky Way Formation
Is the Milky Way a collection of merged galaxies, or has it only been one galaxy that was created from the interstellar media?
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Why would the merger of spinning black holes within the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole cause them to "shoot straight up" out of the disk?
I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
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How likely are planets to form after neutron star collisions?
It is well known that planetary collisions can create moons orbiting the result of the merger if they happen in the correct way, and this is how the Earth's moon is believed to have been formed. See ...
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If two stars collide, what is the probability that they merge to form a single star?
After looking at What are the odds that the Sun hits another star? and answering it (crudely), now I'd like to ask the following:
What is the probability that if two stars collide, their cores merge ...
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Binary pairings that haven't been discovered yet?
Question: Are there any kinds of binary pairings that haven't been discovered yet? Any that are particularly significant, or that might shed some light on binary stellar evolution or theories of ...
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Difference in energy released in stellar mass black hole merger and supermassive black hole merger
Super massive black holes are usually millions of times more massive than stellar mass black holes. I have read on SE and over internet that 3M☉ worth of energy is released in black hole mergers (not ...
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What enhances the capture and merge rates of pairs of small black holes orbiting around supermassive black holes?
I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
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Could our Sun be the product of an ancient stellar collision?
The canonical model for the formation of the Solar System involves the gravitational collapse of a nebula into (perhaps) several stars across several light years. Is it possible that two or more of ...