GW190521 tagged posts

A research team has reconstructed the origin of an unusual gravitational wave signal. The signal GW190521 may result from the merger of two massive black holes that captured each other in their gravitational field and then collided while spinning around each other in a rapid, eccentric motion.

When black holes collide in the universe, the clash shakes up space and time: the amount of energy released during the merger is so great that it causes space-time to oscillate, similar to waves on the surface of water...

For the first time, scientists believe they have detected a merger of two black holes with eccentric orbits. According to a paper published in Nature Astronomy by researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation and the University of Florida, this can help explain how some of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration are much heavier than previously thought possible.

Eccentric orbits are a sign that black holes could be repeatedly gobbling up others during chance encounters in areas densely populated with black holes such as galactic nucle...