The first gravitational waves detected


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 The first gravitational waves detected came from a binary black hole system nobody predicted!


On 14 September 2015, gravitational waves were detected on Earth for the first time. These ripples in the fabric of space-time – predicted by Einstein in 1916 – came from the merger of two black holes in a distant galaxy.


Briefly, the power pumped out was 50 times greater than that of all the stars in the Universe combined. But this was not the only jaw-dropping aspect of the event.


Each of the black holes was in the 30 solar mass range. Since a black hole is what’s left after most of a star has blown into space as a supernova, the precursor stars must have weighed at least 300 solar masses.

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