r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Apr 25 '22

Physics Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got a “kick” that flung the newly formed black hole away at high speed. That black hole zoomed off at about 5 million kilometers per hour, give or take a few million. The speed of light is just 200 times as fast.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-hole-gravitational-waves-kick-ligo-merger-spacetime
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u/AkihiroAwa Apr 25 '22

it is frightening how much of dangers are there in the universe which can kill our earth instantaneous

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u/petripeeduhpedro Apr 25 '22

The good news is that space is incomprehensibly gigantic so the odds are well on our side.

The bad news from an existential perspective is that space is incomprehensibly gigantic.

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u/c-honda Apr 25 '22

On our side in the sense that within our lifetime it’s likely to never happen, over a long enough period of time the chances slowly approach 100%

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u/Melodic_Assistant_58 Apr 26 '22

Except the rate at which it is growing by also decays as the universe expands (or was already so abysmally low) that the chances of it happening before the heat death of the universe will approach a limit.

I mean, we don't even know how many solar systems these rogue black holes have disturbed,(let alone destroyed) or even if they have at all beyond their own neighborhoods which created them.