"Pac-Man" Black Holes Spotted Eating Neutron Stars

Scientists have detected black holes gobbling up neutron stars, marking the observation of collisions between the two most extreme objects in the universe for the very first time. Read more about how scientists spotted the rare cosmic event.

Within a 10-day time frame, a team of over 1,000 international scientists spotted the rare cosmic event twice using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the U.S. and the Virgo gravitational-wave observatory in Italy, They published their findings, originally documented in January 2020, on Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

While researchers have suspected this type of event in the past, this is the first time one has been confirmed. Ecstatic researchers say the observations of the death spiral and merger of neutron stars and black holes will help "unlock some of the most complex mysteries of the universe," including the building blocks of matter and the nature of the space-time continuum.

Ahead of the collision and merger, the two massive objects, both the corpses of massive dead stars, orbit each other at around half the speed of light. During the newly-captured collision, the neutron star is warped and deformed as it nears the black hole, which becomes more massive as it swallows the star whole. 

All of the mass of a neutron star is squeezed into an extremely dense star, which is about the size of a city. Scientists say that one teaspoon of a neutron star weighs as much as all of humanity.

(read more at CBS News)