Cosmic signals from a black hole collision 7bn years old reach Earth

This astronomical breakthrough came through in May 2019, when two detectors picked up an audio signal of a ripple in space that lasted around one tenth of a second. Described as a brief ‘thud,’ the signal was deciphered and found to be the remnants of a violent burst of energy created by the meeting of two black holes 150 billion trillion km away, around the universe’s half birthday. In the aftermath of the event an intermediate black hole – at 142 times the mass of the Sun – was formed.

It’s worth noting that this is far from the first black hole collision we’ve observed, but the subjects involved in the previous 67 instances on record were smaller to begin with and failed to grow beyond the size of typical black holes even after merging. While it’s yet to be proven, Supermassive black holes have been thought to exist through merging with smaller black holes several times and consolidating until they become enormous. The presence of intermediary black holes has added a lot of credence to this theory.

On the other hand, scientists can’t quite explain how merged black holes would meet anywhere near frequently enough to grow so exponentially. Janna Levin, a Bernard College astronomer and author of the book Black Hole Survivor Guide claimed: ‘It’s conceivable that this pair of black holes formed entirely differently, possibly in a dense system with lots of dead stars whizzing about, which allows one black hole to capture another during a fly-by.’

Many astrophysicists find this explanation to be farfetched, instead leaning on the theory that Supermassive black holes were formed in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. Either way, studying the formation of intermediary black holes will go a long way to finding the truth about the formation of Supermassive black holes and therefore the universe.

Professor Alessandra Buonanno, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics has stated that the sensitivity of gravitational sensors across leading observatories are currently being upgraded, meaning we will discover black holes at a more frequent rate than ever before.

Hold tight, we may just uncover the best kept secrets of the universe in our lifetime.