All articles tagged with #gravitational waves
Astronomers may have observed the first superkilonova, a hybrid explosion involving both a supernova and a kilonova, suggesting new insights into star death and heavy element formation, though confirmation is pending.
Astronomers may have observed a new type of astrophysical event called a superkilonova, where a star splits in half, leading to a double explosion involving neutron stars, based on observations of the event AT2025ulz, which showed signs of both supernova and kilonova phenomena.
Scientists observed a unique cosmic event where a massive star first exploded as a supernova, then its core split into two neutron stars that collided, creating a hybrid 'superkilonova' explosion, challenging existing stellar physics and offering new insights into heavy element formation.
Caltech researchers may have discovered the first superkilonova, a rare event where a star explodes twice in different ways, involving the formation of low-mass neutron stars within a supernova, followed by their merger producing a kilonova, challenging previous understanding of stellar explosions.
Astronomers have observed a rare stellar explosion, dubbed AT2025ulz, which appears to be a 'superkilonova'—a complex event involving both a supernova and a kilonova, resulting from the birth and merger of two neutron stars, challenging existing theories and potentially marking only the second such detection.
Astronomers may have observed the first confirmed 'superkilonova,' a rare cosmic explosion that combines features of supernovae and kilonovae, involving a potential merger of neutron stars following a supernova, indicated by the unusual event AT2025ulz detected in 2025.
Astronomers may have detected the first superkilonova, a rare cosmic event involving the merger of two neutron stars, evidenced by a gravitational wave signal and unusual electromagnetic observations, suggesting a complex explosion that could involve sub-solar mass neutron stars. More data is needed to confirm this groundbreaking discovery.
Physicist Ralf Schützhold proposes an experiment to manipulate gravitational waves using light, potentially enabling the transfer of energy between light and gravitational waves and providing insights into the quantum nature of gravity, building on the principles of interferometry similar to LIGO.
Despite political challenges in 2025, significant scientific achievements were made, including the detection of the strongest gravitational signals from black hole mergers, advancements in nuclear fusion, innovative gene therapies, and breakthroughs in chemical recycling and climate research, highlighting a resilient and innovative scientific community.
Scientists have explained the 'impossible' merger of massive, rapidly spinning black holes by considering the role of magnetic fields in the evolution of progenitor stars, revealing that magnetic forces can influence black hole mass and spin, and potentially produce black holes within the mass gap observed in previous theories.
In 2023, astronomers observed a black hole merger that defied existing physics, involving black holes within a forbidden mass range and spinning at near light speed. New simulations incorporating magnetic fields reveal that these fields can eject mass during a star's collapse, producing lighter, fast-spinning black holes and potentially observable gamma-ray bursts, offering insights into these 'impossible' black holes.
The article explains that Weber bars, early devices designed to detect gravitational waves, are not practical for modern detection due to their small size and sensitivity limitations. Current detectors like LIGO use laser interferometry to successfully observe these waves, which originate from massive cosmic events. While Weber's approach was pioneering, advancements have made it obsolete for detecting the faint, high-frequency gravitational waves produced by most astrophysical sources today.
Scientists have detected two pairs of merging black holes, with the larger black holes in each pair likely being 'second-generation' black holes formed from previous mergers, providing evidence of hierarchical black hole formation and confirming Einstein's predictions through gravitational wave observations.
Scientists detected gravitational waves from two newborn black holes formed by previous mergers, providing new insights into black hole formation, general relativity, and particle physics, with one event revealing a black hole spinning in the opposite direction of its orbit for the first time.
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration detected two record-breaking black hole merger events in 2024, revealing black holes with unusual spins and suggesting hierarchical mergers, providing new insights into black hole formation, testing Einstein's relativity, and constraining hypothetical particles beyond the standard model.