Rare phenonmenon: Merger of two black holes observed by scientists

Black holes are one such mysterious phenomenon that has always captured the imagination of scientists all over the world. From Albert Einstien to Stephen Hawkings, black holes have never failed to amaze scientists opening gates for further research. The first image of a black hole was published in April 2019 following observations made by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2017 of the supermassive black hole in Messier 87's galactic centre.

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The findings

According to reports, scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo interferometer in Pisa, Italy have observed a rare merger of two black holes, the news about which was first shared at an online meeting of the American Physical Society on April 18. The findings were published in Cornell University's arvix journal with a title, "GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses."

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"We report the observation of gravitational waves from a binary-black-hole coalescence during the first two weeks of LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run. The signal was recorded on April 12, 2019 at 05:30:44 UTC with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 19. The binary is different from observations during the first two observing runs most notably due to its asymmetric masses: a ~30 solar mass black hole merged with a ~8 solar mass black hole companion," the arvix journal in its report said.

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The findings also said that the event GW190412 took place about 1.9 to 2.9 billion light-years away from Earth. The solar mass of the two black holes that were observed by the scientists weighed approximately 8 and 30 as mentioned in the findings above. Solar mass is a standard unit of mass in astronomy which is equal to 1.989e+30 kilogram or 2×10³⁰ kg. The observations once again prove Einstein's general theory of relativity.

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(Image Credit: AP)