UPSC Articles
GW190412: Merger of two unequal-mass black holes.
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Space
In News:
- The gravitational wave observatories at LIGO scientific collaboration have detected a merger of two unequal-mass black holes for the first time since it started functioning.
Key takeaways:
- The event is dubbed as GW190412.
- It was detected nearly a year ago.
- The event involved two black holes of unequal masses combining together.
- One of the black holes was around 30 times the mass of the Sun and the other had a mass nearly 8 times the sun’s mass.
- The actual merger took place at a distance of 2.5 billion light years away.
Important value additions:
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
- It is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations.
- It is the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory.
- It consists of two detectors situated 1,865 miles (3,002 kilometers) apart in isolated regions in the states of Washington and Louisiana.
