INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Physicists with the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA collaboration have detected the gravitational wave signal (dubbed GW231123) of the most massive merger
between two black holes yet observed, resulting in a new black hole that is 225 times more massive than our Sun
The results were presented at the Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves in Glasgow, Scotland.The LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA collaboration
searches the universe for gravitational waves produced by the mergers of black holes and neutron stars
LIGO detects gravitational waves via laser interferometry, using high-powered lasers to measure tiny changes in the distance between two
objects positioned kilometers apart
LIGO has detectors in Hanford, Washington, and in Livingston, Louisiana
A third detector in Italy, Advanced Virgo, came online in 2016
In Japan, KAGRA is the first gravitational-wave detector in Asia and the first to be built underground
Construction began on LIGO-India in 2021, and physicists expect it will turn on sometime after 2025.To date, the collaboration has detected
dozens of merger events since its first Nobel Prize-winning discovery
Early detected mergers involved either two black holes or two neutron stars
Credit: EGO-Virgo
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA started its fourth observing run in 2023, and by the following year had announced the
detection of a signal indicating a merger between two compact objects, one of which was most likely a neutron star
It was the first gravitational-wave detection of a mass-gap object paired with a neutron star and hinted that the mass gap might be less
empty than astronomers previously thought.
