Zero Genie

An astronaut always craves to witness a rare phenomenon in the universe which can open new gates for further research. Black holes have been one such mysterious phenomenon. Be it the time when it was mentioned by Albert Einstein, explained by Stephen Hawking or its first observation in 2019, black holes never cease to amaze.

One of the latest yet rare observation is a merger of two black holes, captured by the scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo interferometer in Pisa, Italy. The news about the black hole merger was first shared on April 18 at the online meeting of the American Physical Society.

LIGO is a pair of twin detectors, which are based in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. The event, identified as GW190412, has also been explained in a video. .

According to the information shared in the findings, the event GW190412 took place about 1.9 to 2.9 billion light-years away from Earth. The two black holes weighed approximately 8 and 30 Solar masses.

The rare event has opened new doors for the study on the black holes, their merger and gravitational waves.

In a press release, Frank Ohme, the leader of the Independent Max Planck Research Group, said, “For the very first time we have ‘heard’ in GW190412 the unmistakable gravitational-wave hum of a higher harmonic, similar to overtones of musical instruments.”

These observations once again prove the theory of General Relativity proposed by Einstein.