ringdown
Just like a bell ‚rings‘ for some time after it’s been struck, the collision of two black holes resonates in the form of gravitational waves. They are fainter than those released during the merger and occur due to a brief oscillation of the new black ...
merger
A merger occurs as a consequence of an inspiral, when two black holes collide to form one single bigger black hole. The emission of gravitational waves peaks during a ...
inspiral
The inspiral is one phase in the life cycle of binary black holes. The objects lose energy due to the emission of gravitational waves, which causes their orbits to gradually shrink. They spiral towards each other with increasing speed, until they collide and ...
Wormhole
Einstein's general theory of relativity can be used to construct model universes in which shortcuts in space exist. For certain regions of space one has two possibilities to travel from one to the other – one conventionally through space, the other by ...
LISA Pathfinder
LISA Pathfinder was a test mission of the European Space Agency ESA for the LISA mission. LISA Pathfinder demonstrated the functionality of crucial LISA technologies with which the first gravitational wave observatory in space will observe low-frequency ...
sine
The sine, written sin(x), is a mathematical function that is perfectly regular and repetitive, with maximal and minimal values following each other in endless procession. The function is plotted here: Sine waves are the simplest waves imaginable, with ...
XMM Newton
Satellite project of the European space agency ESA. Launched in December 1999, XMM Newton is a space-based X-ray telescope; as such it is especially suited for research on the luminous phenomena associated with black holes. XMM-Newton Pages at ...
X-rays
Highly energetic electromagnetic waves with frequencies between a few hundred Quadrillions and a few hundred Quintillions of oscillations per second, corresponding to wavelengths of a few billionths to a few trillionths of a metre. Most people know of these ...
