Scientists Detect Second Pair of Colliding Black Holes
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 15:40
in Astronomy & Space
The new window onto the universe just opened a little bit wider. For the second time in history, an international team of scientists, including Northwestern University astrophysicists and a laser scientist, has detected gravitational waves and a pair of colliding black holes. This time, the gravitational waves resulted in a longer signal, or chirp, providing more data. The higher-frequency gravitational waves from the lower-mass black holes of the second pair better spread across the LIGO detectors' sweet spot of sensitivity.