Researchers from the LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations have detected four new black hole collisions, including the largest black hole merger detected, reports Ryan Mandelbaum for Gizmodo. Researchers have begun cataloguing “black hole collisions to tell the broader story about how often these massive crashes occur and what causes them.”
BBC News reporter Jonathan Amos writes that LIGO (operated by MIT and Caltech) and Virgo researchers have detected gravitational waves emanating from the largest black hole merger ever detected. Amos notes the discovery was announced by the collaboration as part of an “expanded catalogue” of detections that “tells us something about the probable future successes of the laser laboratories.”
Prof. Angelika Amon received this year’s Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her “contributions to finding significant solutions to curing human diseases,” while Profs. Chenyang Xu, Daniel Harlow, Matt Evans and research scientist Lisa Barsotti received New Horizons Prizes for “early-career achievements in their respective fields,” reports Xinhua.
Prof. Angelika Amon is a recipient of this year’s Breakthrough Prize “for her work on aneuploidy, irregularities in the number of chromosomes,” which could lead to a new understanding of cancer, writes Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Prof. Chenyang Xu, Prof. Matt Evans and research scientist Lisa Barsotti received New Horizons Prizes in physics, while Prof. Daniel Harlow received one in math.
A new study co-authored by Assistant Prof. Salvatore Vitale shows that the collision of a black hole and neutron star could provide insight into how quickly the universe is expanding. One such merger could allow physicists to calculate the expansion rate “as effectively as combining data from 50 different neutron-star collisions,” reports Meghan Bartels for Space.com.
A new paper by Assistant Prof. Salvatore Vitale finds that studying the rare pairing of a neutron star and a spiraling black hole could allow researchers to determine the universe’s rate of expansion, writes Jeremy Fox of The Boston Globe. The positive detection of a collision could “potentially give a dramatic contribution to our understanding of the universe,” says Vitale.
An international research team led by postdoctoral fellow Carl Rodriguez has found that within a group of star clusters, black hole collisions can actually create larger black holes, writes Nola Taylor Redd for Fox News. A simulation showed that these black holes “should grow to be more than 50 times as massive as Earth's sun if they collide with other black holes.”
Davide Castelvecchi of Nature explores the “ambitious scientific quarry” that gravitational-wave scientists are after, including what happened in the first few moments after the Big Bang. Castelvecchi, who speaks with MIT physicist Rainer Weiss for this piece, notes that the field has already “delivered discoveries at a staggering rate, outpacing even the rosiest expectations.”
Research Scientist Allan Adams discusses what gravitational waves reveal about the universe with Guy Raz of NPR’s TED Radio Hour. Adams explains that the detection of gravitational waves is important because they “allow us to see back in time and even unlock some of the mysteries of the origins of our universe.”
In an article for Physics Today, Prof. Anna Frebel details the formation of the heaviest elements. While scientists previously thought that supernova explosions were responsible for the creation of elements heavier than iron, Frebel notes that evidence from LIGO and from a faint galaxy known as Reticulum II suggest, “neutron-star mergers are the universe’s way to make elements such as gold and platinum.”
Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss has been named to The Boston Globe’s list of the 2017 Bostonians of the Year for his work starting a new revolution in astronomy. Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz notes that Weiss, “shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for conceiving and shepherding a set of observatories that allowed scientists to prove Einstein’s assertion about gravitational waves.”
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala speaks with Massive reporter Prabarna Ganguly about her work engineering high-precision laser beams to detect signals from deep space, the long hunt for gravitational waves and her hopes for future generations of scientists. Ganguly writes that Mavalvala is, “one of the stalwarts in a long, arduous, and deeply human discovery of faraway perturbations rippling through the universe.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Amina Khan writes that researchers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration have identified gravitational waves emitted from the smallest black hole they have detected. “Its mass makes it very interesting,” explains Prof. Salvatore Vitale. The discovery, he adds, “really starts populating more of this low-mass region that [until now] was quite empty.”
Wired reporter Abigail Beall explores the science behind the successful detection of two colliding neutron stars. "It immediately appeared to us the source was likely to be neutron stars, the other coveted source we were hoping to see—and promising the world we would see," says MIT’s David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz explores the significance of the first detection of two colliding neutron stars using gravitational wave detectors and telescopes. Moskowitz notes that the discovery offers, “so many immediate and long-term rewards that researchers struggled to pick their favorite part.” Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis explained that, “It’s like getting a kid in the candy store and telling them to choose.”