So I heard that, possibly, two super massive black holes could be merging by the end of this or next year. My question is this, and essentially trying to get my head around, if it takes x amount of time for light to reach us, has this event already happened? And we are just seeing it in its past?
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If we’re detecting a black hole merger it’s through their gravitational wave signal, and gravitational waves travel at… wait for it… the speed of light. So does light. For various reasons there can be a delay, but assuming the merger produced a visual signal it would arrive within hours or days of the gravitational signal.
Yes it already happened in the past, and yes we’re just seeing evidence of it now.
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