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Physicists Spot Four Black Hole Collisions, Including The Largest One Ever Recorded
Physicists have spotted four new instances of black holes colliding and sending their gravitational waves toward the Earth, including the most massive collision recorded to date.
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Can Scientists Figure Out Where Colliding Black Holes Come From?
When distant black holes (or neutron stars) collide, there’s a lot scientists can tell from the way they send gravitational waves rippling through space. That includes their masses, their distance, and how their spins line up with one another. But one question they’re still trying to figure out is, well, where are they?
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A New Gravitational Wave Detector Makes Its First Discovery
Image: The Virgo Collaboration Arguably the most exciting recent development in astronomy was 2016’s announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves, waves that literally ripple the shape of space itself, created by violent events like black holes colliding. But every gravitational wave discovery had always been done with only two detectors, meaning that scientists only…
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The Hunt For Gravitational Waves Is Officially Headed To Space
It took around a hundred years between Albert Einstein crafting his theory of general relativity and the confirmation of one of its wildest predictions, gravitational waves. So naturally, folks have been especially sceptical about funding expensive projects to look harder for them. But now that experiments are actually finding gravitational waves, scientists are ready to…