![Figure 3](figure03.png)
Figure 3: The maximum initial orbital period (in hours) of two point masses that will coalesce
due to gravitational wave emission in a time interval shorter than 1010 yr, as a function of the
initial eccentricity
. The lines are calculated for
(BH + BH),
(BH + NS), and
(NS + NS).
![e0](article280x.gif)
![10 M ⊙ + 10 M ⊙](article281x.gif)
![10 M ⊙ + 1.4M ⊙](article282x.gif)
![1.4 M ⊙ + 1.4M ⊙](article283x.gif)