Detected by the LVK Network of observatories, involving LIGO detector in United States, Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan.
Key Highlights of the Event
- Event: The event, GW231123, occurred billions of years ago and was detected through Gravitational Waves (GW) from it.
- GW are 'ripples' in space-time caused by some of most violent and energetic processes in the Universe.
- Albert Einstein (in his General Theory of Relativity) predicted their existence in 1916.
- Heaviest Merger: Involved two black holes with masses of about 100 and 140 times the Sun merging to form a final black hole weighing ~225 solar masses.
About Black Holes
- They are astronomical objects with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
- Types
- Stellar-mass : Around 20 times the Sun’s mass or more.
- Intermediate-mass: Around one hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the Sun’s mass.
- Supermassive: Hundreds of thousands to billions of times the Sun’s mass.
Gravitational Wave Detection Network
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