Strong gravitational waves recorded by the LIGO and Virgo observatories have revealed what experts believe may be the first detection of a neutron star swallowed by a black hole or we can say a collision between a black hole and a neutron star.
The historical event, which was detected on August 14 and received the name S190814bv, was recorded on Wednesday in a public database used by astronomers. The initial analysis suggests that there is a 99 percent chance that the waves are the consequences of the cataclysmic fusion of a neutron star with a black hole.
“So far, it obviously does not resemble anything we have detected very safely before,” Daniel Holz, a scientist at the University of Chicago and a member of LIGO, told Science News. He believes that potential detection is already exciting on its own. “The first of anything is always really fascinating,” he added.
Scientists are still analyzing the data to verify what generated gravitational waves. If the assumptions are confirmed, this would be the first solid detection of a type of phenomenon never seen before. The researchers estimate that the clash between the two objects occurred about 900 million light-years away.
Source: Science News.
