Astronomers detect the most massive, powerful black hole collision yet

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration portal shared a press release on its website on September 2, revealing information about the most massive gravitational-wave source yet detected. The LIGO and Virgo Detectors had actually detected the gravitational waves on May 21, 2019. They detected the signal, which was then labelled as GW190521, on May 21, 2019. National Science Foundation’s LIGO refers to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, which is a pair of identical, 4 km long interferometers in The US, while Virgo is a 3 km long detector in Italy. 

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Astronomers discover two black holes colliding

According to The Verge, The collision of these two black holes had been announced on September 2 in 'Physical Review Letters' as well as 'The Astrophysical Journal Letters'. It is said that the collision between the two black holes that was detected yesterday is the biggest ever detected collision of 2 black holes. The collision was detected via gravitational waves that were created after the collision. This collision between the two black holes actually occurred 7 billion years ago, but their effect has reached Earth now.

The collision was between two black holes, one which was 66 times the mass of the Sun while the other one was 85 times the mass of our Sun. The two immense black holes circled each other until they collided and merged, due to which bursts of energy was released throughout the universe. Now, this black hole is 142 times the mass of our Sun. This could be a big find for the astronomers, as this black hole comes under the intermediate-mass black holes (Balck holes whose mass ranges from 100 to 1000 times of the mass of that of our Sun). 

Till now, astronomers could only find smaller black holes that ranged 5-100 times the mass of our Sun, and the supermassive black holes that are millions - billions of times the size of our Sun's mass. Astronomers are now expecting to discover new findings of the universe which will help them uncover more puzzling secrets about the universe.

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Intermediate-mass black holes finally discovered

National Geographic reported that the Caltech astronomer named Matthew Graham mentioned that this event might be the largest explosion ever known in the universe as of yet. A LIGO team member Christopher Berry, who is a physicist at Northwestern University, also stated that now they have discovered that the intermediate-mass black holes do exist, a principle that was a mystery for a long time. According to the press release by LIGO, Alan Weinstein who is a LIGO member, as well as a professor of physics at Caltech, stated that “This event opens more questions than it provides answers," but "from the perspective of discovery and physics, it’s a very exciting thing”. 

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