# Warped Space and Time Around Colliding Black Holes

This computer simulation shows the warping of space and time around two colliding black holes observed by LIGO on September 14, 2015. LIGO detected gravitational waves generated by this black hole merger—humanity's first contact with gravitational waves and black-hole collisions. Gravitational waves are ripples in the shape of space and flow of time.

The colored surface is the space of our universe, as viewed from a hypothetical, flat, higher-dimensional universe, in which our own universe is embedded. Our universe looks like a warped two-dimensional sheet because one of its three space dimensions has been removed. Around each black hole, space bends downward in a funnel shape, a warping produced by the black hole's huge mass.

Near the black holes, the colors depict the rate at which time flows. In the green regions outside the holes, time flows at its normal rate. In the yellow regions, it is slowed by 20 or 30 percent. In the red regions, time is hugely slowed. Far from the holes, the blue and purple bands depict outgoing gravitational waves, produced by the black holes' orbital movement and collision.

Our universe's space, as seen from the hypothetical higher-dimensional universe, is dragged into motion by the orbital movement of the black holes, and by their gravity and by their spins. This motion of space is depicted by silver arrows, and it causes the plane of the orbit to precess gradually, as seen in the video.

The upper left numbers show time, as measured by a…

- Kind: Short
- Year: 2016
- Runtime: 1 min
- By: LIGO Lab Caltech : MIT
- Genres: Space
- Archive: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warped_Space_and_Time_Around_Colliding_Black_Holes.webm)
- Licence or status: [CC BY 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) (as the archive states it)
- Credit: LIGO Lab Caltech : MIT
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/commons/50889587?play=1)