Scientists Detect Most Massive Black Hole Merger Ever, 225 Times Heavier Than the Sun

An international team of scientists has detected the largest black hole merger ever observed, producing a cosmic giant approximately 225 times more massive than the sun, a record, breaking event that could reshape our understanding of black hole formation, as reported by Livescience.

The discovery was made by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration, a global network of observatories that detect gravitational waves, ripples in space-time caused by violent cosmic events. These waves, first predicted by Einstein and confirmed in 2015, offer a new way to study the universe.

The newly discovered merger took place near the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy and has created what scientists believe may be an extremely rare type of black hole, potentially belonging to a class that challenges existing astrophysical models.

The individual black holes involved were around 100 and 140 solar masses, falling into a «mass gap» — a size range that conventional theories say should not exist. The final merged object is nearly twice as massive as the previous record holder, which weighed in at 142 solar masses.

Researchers say this may be the strongest evidence yet for the existence of intermediate-mass black holes, a missing link between stellar black holes and supermassive ones found at the centers of galaxies.

The findings will be officially presented this week at the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves in Glasgow, Scotland.

Kursiv Uzbekistan also reports that Uzbekistan is considering launching a satellite in collaboration with Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX.