Simulations Show What Really Happens When a Black Hole Devours a Neutron Star

When a black hole and a neutron star finally meet, the result is cosmic carnage—and now, thanks to Caltech’s latest supercomputer simulations, we’re getting a front-row seat to the whole terrifying show. In a new pair of studies published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers led by Caltech astrophysicist Elias Most ran the most detailed simulations to date of neutron star–black hole mergers. These violent events are some of the most extreme in the universe, and the new work reveals what happens just seconds—and even milliseconds—before the neutron star is obliterated. One of the papers, published last year, describes the simulated results of quakes on the surface of neutron stars before they are swallowed by black holes. The other paper, published at the end of March, dove into the “black hole pulsars” and monster shockwaves produced by the violence. The above snapshot from the team’s simulation shows magnetized outflows of plasma that are launched outward from a black ... Read full article.