A collision of two black holes brought the entire universe to stand still for a few milliseconds, by generating 50 times more power than all the stars in the entire universe. The discovery was made last September by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or LIGO, where astrologists recorded a 3.6 x 1049 watts or 36 septillion yottawatts energy blast.
The impact between the two black holes was so great that it instantaneously released energy in the form of gravitational waves instead of light. When the black holes merged they release enough energy to transform three suns' worth mass into gravitational wave energy in a few milliseconds, Science News reported.
During a nuclear explosion, which is an example of mass to energy conversion, mere few kilograms of radioactive elements can generate power that can wipe out an entire city. The concept of vaporizing three suns into energy in just a few milliseconds essentially blurs a human's grasp over numbers and can only be express by mathematical numbers like yottawatts.
According to Caltech astrophysicist Kip Thorne, the titanic clash between the two black holes violently stirred the fabric of space and time. The power of the ripple created by the collision was 50 times greater than all of the power given out by all of the stars in the universe, Thorne said addressing a conference back in February.
This was the first time a merging of two black holes was witnessed and gravitational wave produced as a result, researchers wrote in the journal published on the science journal APS.org. The discovery essential made headlines everywhere because it also proved that Einstein, who first predicted gravitational waves, was right about their existence.
The indirect evidence of gravitational waves has also been measured by the researchers who were studying massive outbursts of energy released by the quasar named OJ287, Astronomy reported. This also helped the sky viewers to confirm that missing orbital energy was being converted to gravitational waves, which somewhat coincided with general relativity's estimations.
The real of black holes is still a deep mystery to the scientists and rare events like the black hole collision shed some light on their nature, there are miles ahead before scientists would be able to crunch everything in numbers.
This video shows how the merging of two black holes takes place.