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GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth

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The two Advanced LIGO interferometers registered a coincident signal sweeping upward in frequency over about a fifth of a second and then cutting off - the inspiral, merger and ringdown of two black holes of roughly thirty-six and twenty-nine solar masses, forming a final hole of about sixty-two and radiating some three solar masses as gravitational waves. The signal arrived at Livingston about seven milliseconds before Hanford. It was the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole system of any kind; the source lay several hundred megaparsecs away, and the event happened before the detectors' formal observing run had officially begun.

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No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 6
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 46 blocks · 1 evidence · 38 related

  1. Story
  2. The two Advanced LIGO interferometers registered a coincident signal sweeping upward in frequency over about a fifth of a second and then cutting off - the inspiral, merger and ringdown of two black holes of roughly thirty-six and twenty-nine solar masses, forming a final hole of about sixty-two and radiating some three solar masses as gravitational waves. The signal arrived at Livingston about seven milliseconds before Hanford. It was the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole system of any kind; the source lay several hundred megaparsecs away, and the event happened before the detectors' formal observing run had officially begun.
  3. Knowledge
  4. The event horizon
  5. The no-hair result
  6. Gravitational waves
  7. LIGO Hanford Observatory
  8. LIGO Livingston Observatory
  9. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  10. Stellar-mass black hole
  11. Connections
  12. LIGO Hanford Observatory
  13. LIGO Livingston Observatory
  14. The no-hair result
  15. Stellar-mass black hole
  16. Gravitational waves
  17. LIGO Hanford Observatory
  18. LIGO Livingston Observatory
  19. The event horizon
  20. The Kerr solution and black hole spin
  21. The black hole information paradox
  22. Kerr finds the rotating solution
  23. The term "black hole" enters use
  24. Hawking argues that information is destroyed
  25. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  26. Cygnus X-1
  27. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  28. Supernova
  29. Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity
  30. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  31. The detection is announced and published
  32. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  33. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  34. The detection is announced and published
  35. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  36. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  37. The Kerr solution and black hole spin
  38. Schwarzschild radius
  39. Black hole entropy
  40. Schwarzschild solves the field equations for a point mass
  41. Oppenheimer and Snyder compute continued gravitational contraction
  42. Penrose proves that collapse to a singularity is generic
  43. The term "black hole" enters use
  44. GW150914 - two black holes merge and the signal reaches Earth
  45. Evidence
  46. The first direct detection of gravitational waves, from the merger of two black holes on 14 September 2015. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; WebFetch to www.ligo.org and every other host was refused by the egress proxy. Volume and article number are from recall of a canonical citation; component masses and distance quoted in this pack are recalled central values with uncertainties omitted.
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/atlas?object=EVENT_LIGO_GW150914&experience=EVENT_LIGO_GW150914