All articles tagged with #black hole mergers
It's been 10 years since the first detection of gravitational waves, a discovery that confirmed a prediction by Einstein and has since led to the development of multiple detection facilities worldwide, enabling regular observations of black hole mergers and advancing our understanding of the universe.
Since its landmark 2015 detection of gravitational waves confirming Einstein's general relativity, LIGO and its collaborators have made over 300 groundbreaking discoveries, including the heaviest black hole mergers, neutron star collisions, multimessenger astronomy, and the loudest gravitational wave signals, opening new windows into the universe's most extreme events.
In 2025, LIGO has more than tripled its known black hole mergers to around 300, marking a decade of groundbreaking gravitational wave astronomy, but the field faces potential closure due to significant funding cuts, risking setbacks in our understanding of the universe's black hole population and gravitational physics.
Scientists propose that tiny black holes, or 'black hole morsels,' formed during black hole mergers could emit detectable radiation, offering a new way to explore quantum gravity and the structure of spacetime using current gamma-ray observatories.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has surpassed the quantum limit using a technique called frequency-dependent squeezing, allowing it to detect gravitational waves with greater accuracy. This breakthrough in sensitivity means LIGO can now detect 60% more black hole and neutron star mergers than before, expanding our understanding of the universe and enabling more astronomy research.
Gravitational waves, like light, can be gravitationally lensed, allowing astronomers to see deeper into the universe and potentially measure the rate of cosmic expansion more precisely. A new study suggests that when the next generation of gravitational wave observatories comes online, hundreds of lensed black hole and neutron star mergers could be detected, providing a "standard candle" for distance measurement. By analyzing the energy and distance of these lensed events, astronomers hope to resolve the Hubble tension problem and gain a direct measurement of cosmic structure and expansion.