More than five years ago, humanity didn’t know about gravitational waves. Once they were discovered, research took place at an accelerated pace as the interest in gravitational waves surged.
The LIGO-Virgo collaboration has been quite productive in recent months as new observations have been reported at impressive speeds. An average of 1.5 gravitational events has been recorded in the span of six months, offering a lot of interesting information about gravitational waves, which can be used by scientists to learn more about the mechanics behind them.
Powerful events
Gravitational waves are released as a consequence of massive impacts between neutron stars of black holes. The gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog contains information about 50 events of this type, and more could be detected in the future. By tracing the origin of the gravitational waves, researchers have found new black holes as well as interesting data about neutron stars.
One of the biggest discoveries related to gravitational waves was the existence of binary black holes. Some of the clashes were also quite interesting. For example, GW 190412 featured two black holes with an impressive mass variation.
New data
Another gravitational wave, GW 190521, proved that intermediate-mass black holes, which have a mass between stars and supermassive black holes, are, in fact, real, as it was theorized by some researchers in the past. According to one researcher, the observations made with LIGO and Virgo have offered crucial information about the universe.
Scientists are also exploring other unusual events, like the merger of a black hole and a neutron star or the merger of two light black holes. One of the black holes has the mass of six Suns, while the other one is bigger as its mass is equal to nine Suns.
Data related to gravitational waves can be used to learn more about gravity and the way in which massive stars can evolve over time.
