US EditionAstronomers Detect Most Massive Black Hole Collision to Date
NONE, JUL 16 – The event GW231123 produced a black hole 225 times the Sun's mass, challenging formation models and marking the heaviest merger detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA so far.
- On July 16, 2025, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration announced the detection of the most massive black hole merger to date, involving two black holes with unprecedented combined mass.
- Since 2015, LIGO with Virgo and KAGRA have detected about 300 black hole mergers, and the LVK network’s fourth observation run began in May 2023.
- Analysis shows the event could be up to 12 billion light-years away, and `the black holes are also likely spinning almost as fast as physically possible,` Charlie Hoy said.
- GW231123 presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation, adding complexity to existing models and underscoring the need to rethink how the universe builds its heaviest gravitational monsters.
- Future detections will tell us "whether this heavyweight bout was a one-off or the tip of a very hefty iceberg," Imre Bartos said, and "It will take years for the community to fully unravel this intricate signal pattern and all its implications," Gregorio Carullo added.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Why merger of two black holes, 100 times bigger than the Sun, holds significance
The detection of gravitational waves from this event has generated a lot of scientific interest. It has the potential to refine the current understanding of black hole formation, the evolution of stars, and, possibly, the current models of the universe itself.
The most massive black hole merger ever detected shakes up astrophysics
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration has announced a groundbreaking discovery in the field of gravitational wave astronomy. The international research team has detected the most massive merger of two distinct black holes ever recorded. The event, designated GW231123, resulted in the formation of a new black hole with a mass 225...Read Entire Article
According to a new investigation, the collision observed between two black holes, each more massive than a hundred suns, constitutes the largest fusion of this type ever recorded. A team of astronomers discovered the event, called GW231123, when the Laser Interferometry Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of identical instruments located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, detected tenuous waves in space-time produced by…
Two Massive Black Holes Merged to Form One 225 Times the Mass of the Sun
Back in November, a ripple passed through Earth. Not the kind you’d feel with your feet on the ground, but one that shuddered across space-time itself—a literal echo of two massive black holes smashing into each other somewhere near the edge of the Milky Way. The signal, now confirmed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration, marks the most significant black hole merger ever detected. And the cosmic corpse it left behind? A black hole roughly…
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