GW190412: Merger of two unequal-mass black holes. 

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.