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Four panels showing the stages of gravitational interactions between two black holes.
The key stages of the binary formation mechanism highlighted in the cartoon as snapshots from their moment in the simulations. The first panel shows the "mini"-discs around the isolated black holes before they encounter each other in panels 2 and 3 and become bound to one another. Afterwards the binary evolves slowly through gravitational interaction with a reformed mini disc, which rotates around both black holes.
Connar Rowan et al.