The recent detection of gravitational waves is a stunning confirmation of Albert Einstein’s theories and the start of a new way of observing the universe. And at the center of it all is a celebrity couple: the first known pairing of black holes and the most massive ones found outside of the cores of galaxies.
On September 14, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, sensed a disturbance in spacetime caused by two massive black holes smashing together (SN Online: 2/11/16). “It’s quite an incredible discovery,” says Vikram Ravi, an astrophysicist at Caltech. “They’ve seen objects that I guess none of us outside the collaboration imagined they might see.” With masses of 29 and 36 suns, these black holes were roughly twice as massive as the previous record holders.