death spiral tagged posts

Death Spiral: A Black Hole Spins on its Side

Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that the axis of rotation of a black hole in a binary system is tilted more than 40 degrees relative to the axis of stellar orbit. The finding challenges current theoretical models of black hole formation.

The observation by the researchers from Tuorla Observatory in Finland is the first reliable measurement that shows a large difference between the axis of rotation of a black hole and the axis of a binary system orbit. The difference between the axes measured by the researchers in a binary star system called MAXI J1820+070 was more than 40 degrees.

Often for the space systems with smaller objects orbiting around the central massive body, the own rotation axis of this body is to a high degree aligned with the rotation axis...

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Planet WASP-12b is on a Death Spiral, say scientists

Illustration of star and planet
An artist created this illustration of the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b and its star. A Princeton-led team of astrophysicists has shown that this exoplanet is spiraling in toward its host star, heading toward certain destruction in about 3 million years.
Illustration by NASA/JPL-Caltech

Earth is doomed – but not for 5 billion years. Our planet will be roasted as our sun expands and becomes a red giant, but the exoplanet WASP-12b, located 600 light-years away in the constellation Auriga, has less than a thousandth of that time left: a comparatively paltry 3 million years.

A Princeton-led team of astrophysicists has shown that WASP-12b is spiraling in toward its host star, heading toward certain destruction. Their paper appears in the Dec...

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