What scientists have learned from the biggest ever collision of black holes

Scientists in the United States have discovered the biggest-known merger of two black holes using gravitational wave detectors.

The scientific findings from the collision, which was recorded in November 2023, were presented at this year’s International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Glasgow, United Kingdom.What is a black hole?
Black holes are cosmic objects, or regions of space, which comprise a large concentration of matter packed into a relatively tiny space.

The enormous amount of mass packed into a small space creates a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.

As no light is emitted from black holes, rendering them invisible, we do not know what, exactly, is inside them.

Black holes are believed to form when giant stars collapse at the end of their lives. The giant stars collapse when they run out of energy to continue fusion reactions, which keep them bright and hot.When and how was this black hole collision observed?
The collision, which caused a gravitational wave, or sudden ripple in space-time, was observed on November 23, 2023, just before 13:00 GMT by two detectors simultaneously.

These detectors, in the US states of Washington State and Louisiana, are operated by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and are part of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) network.

The LIGO comprises two large-scale laser interferometers, which act as antennae to detect gravitational waves.

The gravitational wave, which was detected for 0.1 seconds as a result of the collision, was named GW231123.LIGO, which is funded by the US National Science Foundation, is a large-scale physics observatory that detects gravitational waves using highly sensitive laser interferometers. It was designed and built by scientists and engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).