Cosmic Gold Mine: New Catalog Unveils a Lost World of Black Hole Mergers
TL;DR
Astronomers released GWTC-5, a catalog with 161 new gravitational-wave signals from black-hole mergers detected by LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA between April 2024 and January 2025, bringing total detections to 390. The haul includes second-generation mergers and the most precisely localized event to date, enabling improved measurements of the Hubble constant and tests of general relativity and Hawking’s area theorem, underscoring a growing, detailed view of black hole populations and their growth in the universe.
- Astronomers discover a 'lost world' of black hole mergers: 'It's the astronomical equivalent of uncovering an ancient civilization' Space
- Scientists Stunned: Two Black Holes Captured Together in a Historic First Futura, le média qui explore le monde
- Astrophysicists strike black gold with treasure trove of gravitational wave detections Phys.org
- The ‘age of gravitational astronomy’ is here Scientific American
- Gravitational waves confirm predicted black-hole mass gap and probe stellar nuclear physics Nature
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