ow close enough to the black hole to be captured by it into the disk (Figure 24.16).

. This artist’s rendition shows a black hole and star (red). As matter streams from the star, it forms a

Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and

e of the swirling material close to the black hole is pushed outward perpendicular to the disk in two
n of work by ESO/L. Calçada)

Cosmic Origins
Prof Steven Finkelstein
AST301
Astronomy in the News!
Learning Objectives
• Describe Einstein’s view of gravity as the warping of
spacetime in the presence of massive objects
• Explain the event horizon surrounding a black hole
• Discuss why the popular notion of black holes as great
sucking monsters that can ingest material at great distances
from them is erroneous
• Explain how a black hole is inherently black yet can be
associated with luminous matter
• Describe what a gravitational wave is, and what can produce
it.
• Discuss the various ways the universe makes all the different
elements, and what this means about our Cosmic Origins.
General Relativity and Space Time
 Curved Spacetime
• Imaging light passing by the Sun. How does the mass of the Sun
affecting passing light? Is light actually bent from its straight-line path
by the mass of Sun? How can light, which has no mass, be affected
by gravity?
• Einstein preferred to think that it is space and time that are affected by the presence of
a large mass; light beams, and everything else that travels through space and time,
then find their paths affected.
• Stars produce measurable distortions in spacetime. A white dwarf, with its stronger
surface gravity, produces more distortion just above its surface than does a red giant
with the same mass
• Now let’s try illustrating the distortions of spacetime in two dimensions. In this case, we will
imagine a rubber sheet that can stretch or warp if we put objects on it.
• Imagine we train an ant to walk in a straight line. Initially, it has no trouble crossing the sheet.
• Now imagine you drop a massive paperweight into the middle of the sheet.
• As the ant nears the paperweight it is forced down, climbing up the other side before it
can return to walking on an undistorted part of the sheet. All this while, the ant is
following the shortest path it can — this path is curved by the distortion of the sheet
itself.
• In the same way, according to Einstein’s theory, light always follows the shortest path through
spacetime. But the mass associated with large concentrations of matter distorts spacetime,
and the shortest, most direct paths are no longer straight lines, but curves.
 Tests of General Relativity
• Of the planets in our solar system, Mercury orbits closest to the Sun and is thus
most affected by the distortion of spacetime produced by the Sun’s mass.
• Einstein wondered if the distortion might produce a noticeable difference in
the motion of Mercury that was not predicted by Newton’s law.
• Mercury has a highly elliptical orbit, and the gravitational effects of the other
planets on Mercury produce a calculable advance of Mercury’s perihelion. What
this means is that each successive perihelion occurs in a slightly different
direction as seen from the Sun.
• According to Newtonian gravitation, the gravitational forces exerted by the
planets will cause Mercury’s perihelion to advance by about 531 arcsec per
century.
• General relativity, however, predicts that due to the curvature of spacetime
around the Sun, the perihelion of Mercury should advance slightly more than is
predicted by Newtonian gravity.
• In the nineteenth century, however, it was observed that the actual
advance is 574 arcsec per century. The relativistic advance of perihelion
was later also observed in the orbits of several asteroids that come close
to the Sun.
 Tests of General Relativity
• Since spacetime is more curved in regions where the
gravitational field is strong, we would expect light passing
very near the Sun to appear to follow a curved path.
• Einstein calculated from general relativity theory that
starlight just grazing the Sun’s surface should be
deflected by an angle of 1.75 arcsec.
• It is difficult to see stars near the Sun *except* during a total solar eclipse. In a paper published during World War I, Einstein
suggested that photographic observations during an eclipse could reveal the deflection of light passing near the Sun.
• To do this, one must image stars prior to the eclipse, charting their locations. Then the same stars are photographed during
the eclipse. As seen from Earth, the stars closest to the Sun will seem to be “out of place”—slightly away from their regular
positions as measured when the Sun is not nearby, as they travel through curved spacetime.
• A single copy of that paper, passed through neutral Holland, reached the British
astronomer Arthur S. Eddington, who noted that the next suitable eclipse was on May 29,
1919. The British organized two expeditions to observe it, both obtaining successful
photographs.
• The stars seen near the Sun were indeed displaced, and to the accuracy of the
measurements, which was about 20%, the shifts were consistent with the predictions
of general relativity. More modern experiments with radio waves traveling close to
the Sun have confirmed that the actual displacements are within 1% of what general
relativity predicts.
• The confirmation of the theory by the eclipse expeditions in 1919 was a triumph that made
Einstein a world celebrity.
Curved Space can act as a
cosmic magnifying glass!
 Escape Velocity
• We want to know what speeds are required to escape
from the gravitational pull of different objects. A rocket
must be launched from the surface of Earth at a very
high speed if it is to escape the pull of Earth’s gravity.
• In fact, any object that is thrown into the air with a
velocity less than 11 kilometers per second will
soon fall back to Earth’s surface. The escape
velocity from the surface of the Sun is higher yet—
618 kilometers per second.
• Now imagine that we begin to compress the Sun. Because the pull of gravity depends on both the mass that is pulling you
and your distance from the center of gravity of that mass, if the Sun is compressed, its mass will remain the same, but the
distance between a point on the Sun’s surface and the center will get smaller and smaller. Thus, as we compress the star, the
pull of gravity for an object on the shrinking surface will get stronger and stronger
• When the shrinking Sun reaches the diameter of a neutron star (about 20 kilometers),
the velocity required to escape its gravitational pull will be about half the speed of light.
Suppose we continue to compress the Sun to a smaller and smaller diameter.
• Ultimately, as the Sun shrinks, the escape velocity near the surface would exceed
the speed of light. If the speed you need to get away is faster than the fastest
possible speed in the universe, then nothing, not even light, is able to escape.
• An object with such large escape velocity emits no light, and anything that
falls into it can never return.
• In modern terminology, we call an object from which light cannot escape a black hole.
 Instapoll #1

When an object crosses the event horizon of a black hole:

A) It cannot pass back out, no matter how fast it travels

B) If it immediately turns around and travels close to the
speed of light, it can escape
C) It can escape, but only if it passes through to the
other side
D) It can escape if it travels at exactly the speed of light
Event Horizons
• The concentration of matter has curved spacetime, and light is “doing its best” to
go in a straight line, yet is now confronted with a world in which straight lines that
used to go outward have become curved paths that lead back in.
• The collapsing star is a black hole in this view, because the very concept of
“out” has no geometrical meaning. The star has become trapped in its own little
pocket of spacetime, from which there is no escape.
• The star’s geometry cuts off communication with the rest of the universe at
precisely the moment when, in our earlier picture, the escape velocity becomes
equal to the speed of light.
• The size of the star at this moment defines a
surface that we call the event horizon.
• Just as objects that sink below our horizon
cannot be seen on Earth, so anything happening
inside the event horizon can no longer interact
with the rest of the universe.
Event Horizons
• The event horizon is the boundary of the black hole, separating the things trapped
inside it from the rest of the universe. Anything coming from the outside is also
trapped once it comes inside the event horizon.
• The horizon’s size depends only on the mass inside it. If the Sun, with its mass of
1 M☉, were to become a black hole, the event horizon radius would be about 3
kilometers.
2GM
R=
c2
• If the entire Galaxy could collapse to a black hole, it
would be only about a tenth of a light year in radius.
Smaller masses have correspondingly smaller
horizons: for Earth to become a black hole, it would
have to be compressed to a radius of only 1 centimeter.
 Instapoll #2

Imaging each of these objects collapsed to a single point (e.g., a singularity). Which object
would have the largest event horizon?

A) your body
B) the Earth
C) the Sun
D) your laptop
6 Min Activity: Curved Spacetime
• 1) Imagine a big rubber sheet, as shown in the top figure. Imagine that you roll some
golf balls across it in directions you choose. Discuss their paths across the sheet.
• 2) Now imagine that we put a bowling ball in the middle of the sheet to make a big,
slope-sided pit, as shown in two perspectives in the bottom figure. Discuss the paths
of three golf balls rolled across the sheet on the following trajectories:
• The golf ball is far from the bowling ball, near the edge of the sheet.
• The golf ball goes directly toward the bowling ball.
• The golf ball comes close to the bowling ball but
not directly at it.
• 3) In each of the three cases of question 3, how would things change if the golf balls
were moving very, very quickly?
• 4) In each of the three cases of question 3, how would things change if the golf balls
were moving very, very slowly?
• 5) Imagine that you send lots of golf balls into the pit. What happens to the depth and
width of the pit as the golf balls fall into the center near the bowling ball?
• 6) Now think about what happens when you roll the slower-than-light golf balls past
the pit. Sketch and label a circle on Figure 26.3 that would mark a “golf ball event
horizon.” If the golf balls come closer to the hole than this circle, they cannot escape.
Spotting a Black Hole
• One idea you may have heard is that black holes go about sucking things up
with their gravity. Actually, it is only very close to a black hole that the strange
effects we have been discussing come into play. The gravitational attraction
far away from a black hole is the same as that of the star that collapsed to
form it. Figure 24.16 Binary Black Hole. This artist’s rendition shows a black hole and star (red). As matter s
disk around the black hole. Some of the swirling material close to the black hole is pushed outward p
narrow jets. (credit: modification of work by ESO/L. Calçada)
• So, if you are a star or distant planet orbiting around a star that becomes a black hole, your orbit may
not be significantly affected by the collapse of the star. If, on the other hand, you venture close to the
event horizon, it would be very hard for you to resist the “pull” of the warped spacetime near the black
hole. You have to get really close to the black hole to experience any significant effect.
• What if a member of a double-star system becomes a black hole, and
its companion manages to survive the death of the massive star?
• The mutual revolution of the giant star and the black hole causes
the material falling toward the black hole to spiral around it rather
than flow directly into it. The infalling gas whirls around the black
hole in a pancake of matter called an accretion disk. It is within
the inner part of this disk that matter is revolving about the black
hole so fast that internal friction heats it up to X-ray–emitting
temperatures
Some “stellar-mass” black holes
Growing a Black Hole
• Out in the suburban regions of the Milky Way Galaxy where we live, stars and star
systems are much too far apart for other stars to provide “food” to a hungry black hole.
• The central regions of galaxies are quite different — stars and raw material can be
quite crowded together, providing a much better opportunity for black holes to find
mass close enough to their event horizons to pull in.
• As a result, black holes in crowded regions can
grow, eventually swallowing thousands or even
millions of times the mass of the Sun.
• Observations have provided compelling evidence that
there is a black hole in the center of our own Galaxy
with a mass of about 4 million times the mass of the
Sun. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope
have shown dramatic evidence for the existence of
black holes in the centers of many other galaxies.
How did black holes come to be?
Gravitational Waves
• According to general relativity, the geometry of spacetime depends on where matter is located. Any
rearrangement of matter creates a disturbance in spacetime. This disturbance is called a gravitational
wave, and relativity predicts that it should spread outward at the speed of light.
• The big problem with trying to study such waves is that they are tremendously weaker than
electromagnetic waves and correspondingly difficult to detect.
• We’ve had indirect evidence for some time that gravitational waves exist. In 1974, astronomers Joseph
Taylor and Russell Hulse discovered a pulsar orbiting another neutron star. Pulled by the powerful
gravity of its companion, the pulsar is moving at about one-tenth the speed of light in its orbit.
• According to general relativity, this system of stellar remnants
should be radiating energy in the form of gravitational waves at a
high enough rate to cause the pulsar and its companion to spiral
closer together. If this is correct, then the orbital period should
decrease by one ten-millionth of a second per orbit.
• Continuing observations showed that the period is decreasing by
precisely this amount. Such a loss of energy in the system can be
due only to the radiation of gravitational waves, thus confirming
their existence. Taylor and Hulse shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in
physics for this work.
Gravitational Waves
• Although such an indirect proof convinced physicists that gravitational waves exist, it is even more satisfying to detect the waves
directly. What we need are phenomena that are powerful enough to produce gravitational waves with amplitudes large enough that
we can measure them.
• Theoretical calculations suggest some of the most likely events that would give a burst of gravitational waves strong enough
that our equipment on Earth could measure it:
• The coalescence of two neutron stars in a binary system that spiral together until they merge

• The swallowing of a neutron star by a black hole

• The coalescence (merger) of two black holes

• The implosion of a really massive star to form a neutron star or a black hole

• US scientists, with collaborators from the UK, Germany, Australia, have built “LIGO” — the
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
• LIGO currently has two observing stations, one in Louisiana and the other in the state
of Washington.
• The effects of gravitational waves are so small that confirmation of their detection will
require simultaneous measurements by two widely separated facilities.
• Local events that might cause small motions within the observing stations and mimic
gravitational waves—such as small earthquakes, ocean tides, and even traffic—
should affect the two sites differently.
 versa.

Gravitational Waves
• Each of the LIGO stations consists of two 4-kilometer-long, 1.2-meter-diameter vacuum
pipes arranged in an L- shape. A test mass with a mirror on it is suspended by wire at each
of the four ends of the pipes. Ultra-stable laser light is reflected from the mirrors and travels
back and forth along the vacuum pipes.
• If gravitational waves pass through the LIGO instrument, then, according to Einstein’s
theory, the waves will affect local spacetime—they will alternately stretch and shrink
the distance the laser light must travel between the mirrors ever so slightly. When one
arm of the instrument gets longer, the other will get shorter, and vice versa.
• To detect a gravitational wave, the change in the distance to the mirror must be
measured with an accuracy of one ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton. Figure 24.17 Gravitational Wave Telescope. An aerial view of the LIGO facility at Livingston, Louisiana. Extending to
and far right of the image are the 4-kilometer-long detectors. (credit: modification of work by Caltech/MIT/LIGO Labo
• LIGO went into operation in 2015—and almost immediately detected gravitational waves
The challenge of this experiment lies in that phrase “ever so slightly.” In fact, to detect a gravitati
produced in the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes, with masses of 20
the change in the distance to the mirror must be measured with an accuracy of one ten-thousand
and 36 times the mass of the Sun. The merger took place 1.3 billion years ago—the diameter of a proton. In 1972, Rainer Weiss of MIT wrote a paper suggesting how this seemingly i
gravitational waves occurred so far away that it has taken that long for them, travelingtask atmight
the be accomplished.
speed of light, to reach us.
A great deal of new technology had to be developed, and work on the laboratory, with funding fro
• During the merger about three times the mass of the Sun was converted to energy National(recall
Science Foundation, began in 1979. A full-scale prototype to demonstrate the technology
E = mc ), producing power about 10 times the power produced by all the stars in
2
andthe entire
operated from 2002 to 2010, but the prototype was not expected to have the sensitivity requi
visible universe— all in the form of gravitational waves. actually detect gravitational waves from an astronomical source. Advanced LIGO, built to be more
the improved technology developed in the prototype, went into operation in 2015—and almost im
• The event was recorded in Louisiana about 7 milliseconds before the detectiondetected
in gravitational waves.
Washington—just the right distance given the speed at which gravitational waves travel—
What LIGO found was gravitational waves produced in the final fraction of a second of the merge
and indicates that the source was located somewhere in the southern hemisphere sky.
holes (Figure 24.18). The black holes had masses of 20 and 36 times the mass of the Sun, and the
Unfortunately, the merger of two black holes is not expected to produce any light, so this is
place 1.3 billion years ago—the gravitational waves occurred so far away that it has taken that lon
the only observation we have of the event. traveling at the speed of light, to reach us.
• By the end of 2021, over 90 GW events had been recorded — most were mergers ofIntwo black of the merger, about three times the mass of the Sun was converted to energy (r
the cataclysm
holes 2
mc ). During the tiny fraction of a second for the merger to take place, this event produced powe
times the power produced by all the stars in the entire visible universe—but the power was all in t
gravitational waves and hence was invisible to our instruments, except to LIGO. The event was re
Louisiana about 7 milliseconds before the detection in Washington—just the right distance given
which gravitational waves travel—and indicates that the source was located somewhere in the so
Gravitational Waves
• In late 2017, data from the LIGO and Virgo detectors provided an accurate position for what
analysis showed was the spiraling together of two neutron stars with masses of 1.1 to 1.6 times
the mass of the Sun.
• Follow up observations with ground-based telescopes detected
electromagnetic emission from a gravitational wave event for the first time.
The observations showed that this source was located in NGC 4993, a galaxy
at a distance of about 130 million light-years.
• Spectra showed that the merger ejected material with a mass of about 6
percent of the mass of the Sun at a speed of one-tenth the speed of
light.
• This material is rich in heavy elements. First estimates suggest that the
merger produced about 200 Earth masses of gold, and around 500 Earth
masses of platinum. Figure 24.18 Signal Produced by a Gravitational Wave. (a) The top
middle panel shows the signal measured at Livingston, Louisiana. Th

• This makes clear that neutron star mergers are a significant source of based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity, produced by the mer
of the waves detected at the two LIGO observatories. Note the remar
the observations with theory. (b) The painting shows an artist’s impr
heavy elements. More such mergers are being found and they will eventual merger. (credit a, b: modification of work by SXS)

improve estimates of the frequency at which neutron star mergers occur; This detection by LIGO (and another one of a different bla
new window on the universe. One of the experimenters c
it may well turn out that the vast majority of heavy elements have been astronomy to the era when silent films were replaced by m
created in such cataclysms. spacetime during the passing of a gravitational wave to th

• Because of the scientific significance of the observations of gravitational By the end of 2021, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration (Virgo is
European Gravitational Observatory in Italy) published a c
waves, three of the LIGO project leaders—Rainer Weiss of MIT, and Kip mergers of two black holes, and most involved black hole
Thorne and Barry Barish of Caltech—were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017. gravitational waves (see Figure 24.19). In the most extrem
times the mass of the Sun merged to form a black hole w
released energy equivalent to 9 times the mass of our Sun

Astronomers are not yet sure how black holes in this unex
of black holes in binary star systems that we discussed in
have masses ranging from 4 to 15 times the mass of the S
 Instapoll #3

The first time that astronomers observed both gravitational waves and electro-magnetic
waves from the same event, what they were observing was:

A) a supernova explosion in one of the closest galaxies

to us
B) the spiraling toward each other of two neutron stars
C) a binary star system where a giant star is
overloading a white dwarf with too much material
D) the merger of two black holes with masses dozens
of times the mass of our Sun
Gravitational Waves
• Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors can detect mergers of
black holes with masses up to about 100 times the mass of the Sun.
• Astronomers would now like to look for the merger of distant
supermassive black holes with masses of thousands to millions
of times larger, which might have occurred when the first
generation of stars formed, only a few hundred million years
after the Big Bang.
• The gravitational waves emitted by mergers of supermassive black holes
are so long that it is necessary to go to space to build an observatory
large enough to detect them.
• ESA (the European Space Agency), with contributions from NASA, is planning
to launch a facility named LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) in 2034
to search for mergers of black holes with masses thousands to millions of
times larger than the mass of the Sun.
• The experiment will consist of three spacecraft arranged in an equilateral
triangle with sides 2.5 million km long, flying along an Earth-like
heliocentric orbit. A test mass floats free inside each spacecraft, and
lasers will be used to measure very accurately the distances between the
test masses.
• Changes in distance will then signal the passing of gravitational
waves.
 Instapoll #4

Which of the following is *not* a way in which heavy elements (mass greater than helium)
are created?

A) fusion in the cores of massive stars

B) merging neutron stars
C) accretion of material onto a supermassive black hole
D) exploding white dwarfs
What is life? We are dead stars looking
back up at the Universe.
• Our own Sun, the version of it that formed, is
only here thanks to the stars that came before it.
• Planet forming disks around young stars are
here only because of the stars that came before
them.
• Us - humans, life, is literally here only because
of dead stars that formed in the universe before
us.
• As Carl Sagan also said, “The Cosmos is within
us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for
the universe to know itself.”
 •No module! We’ll discuss telescopes
on Wednesday.
Summary
Today you learned:
• Describe Einstein’s view of gravity as the warping of spacetime
in the presence of massive objects
• Explain the event horizon surrounding a black hole
• Discuss why the popular notion of black holes as great sucking
monsters that can ingest material at great distances from them
is erroneous
• Explain how a black hole is inherently black yet can be
associated with luminous matter
• Describe what a gravitational wave is, and what can produce it.
• Discuss the various ways the universe makes all the different
elements, and what this means about our Cosmic Origins.