Black Holes, Neutron Stars, and (Big) Spacetime

Animation of a neutron star (luminous blob) orbiting and being swallowed by a black hole. In the news in the last few days when a paper describing their discovery was published. Notice the distortions in spacetime shown by the refraction of the stars (Einstein rings). Gravity waves can be seen as expanding ripples and a final strong gravitational wave emerges after the two objects collide. You can see all my astronomical animations here. This is a modified version of my orbiting black holes animation with special effects.