Gravitational waves detected with greatest precision so far
In 2016, a massive international team of scientists confirmed for the first time the existence of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes. Now, astronomers have taken a huge leap forward with the detection waves from the collision of two black holes using not two, but three detectors — vastly improving the accuracy by a around a factor of 10, and allowing them to pinpoint the source of the waves. The collision occurred between two black holes 31 and 25 times the mass of our Sun, and took place in a galaxy 1.8 billion light years away, with the resulting black hole 53 times the mass the Sun. The observation is the first using three detectors, and the first for the Advanced Virgo detector in Italy, in collaboration with the LIGO's two detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, in the United States. Since 2016 LIGO has detected two more gravitational waves from black hole collisions, and this new observation marks the fourth. To find out more check out LIGO and Virgo observatories jointly detect black hole collision.