Two Black Holes Met by Chance, And It Created Something Never Seen Before

Dynamical interactions between black holes are thought to be extremely rare, and the gravitational wave data obtained so far by LIGO and Virgo would appear to support this. Nevertheless, two black holes met by chance, and it created something never seen before.

The ripples in space-time caused by colliding black holes have revealed a great deal about these mysterious objects.

Black hole characteristics such as their masses, the pattern of their spiraling inwards toward one another, spins, and orientations are all encoded in these gravitational waves.

Scientists deduced from this that black holes in binary systems have been involved in the majority of the collisions that have been seen. The two black holes once existed as a binary of massive stars that coalesced into black holes, spiraled inward, and ultimately merged.

One merging, out of the roughly 90 thus far discovered, stands out as being extremely odd. GW19052, observed in May 2019, generated ripples in space-time...

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