A team of scientists has detected ripples in space-time from a massive collision between two supermassive black holes. The event, which is the most massive merger ever recorded, occurred about 10 billion light years from Earth and created an even more massive black hole.
The black holes, each with masses over 100 times that of the sun, began circling each other long ago before colliding to form a new, larger black hole. The detection was made possible by extremely sensitive gravitational wave detectors that can detect minute distortions in space-time.
Analysis revealed that the merged black hole has a mass of up to 265 times that of the sun and is spinning at nearly 400,000 times faster than Earth’s rotation. This discovery challenges current models of how massive black holes form and will provide new insights into the behavior of these extreme objects.
Physicists believe that the colliding black holes may have been formed through earlier mergers, which would explain their unusual mass and spin. The detection is significant because it marks a major breakthrough in understanding the formation of supermassive black holes.
This discovery is part of a new era in astronomy, where gravitational wave observatories are revealing hidden events in the universe. Future detectors will allow scientists to study all black hole mergers and potentially discover new phenomena that were previously unknown.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/14/scientists-detect-biggest-ever-merger-of-two-massive-black-holes