Scientists at LIGO believe that these two black holes, which recently merged, were not originally formed from stars but likely created from earlier black hole mergers.

Scientists have detected the most massive merger of two black holes ever recorded for the first time in history. 

The celestial event, which took place about 10 billion light-years from Earth, created powerful ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, picked up by special detectors like LIGO.

The black holes, each more than 100 times the mass of the sun, spiralled into one another and collided after circling each other long ago, forming a massive black hole, The Guardian reported.

Researchers detected the black hole collision in November 2023, one in Washington and one in Louisiana.

The black holes first revolved around each other and then came closer before becoming one and blasting gravitational waves in the process, according to a report in Science News. 

The result was a black hole with a mass about 225 times that of the sun, according to researchers. Before this collision, the biggest such event was a black hole of about 140 solar masses. 

To put the enormity of the new event in context, this time, one of the two black holes alone had a similar mass.

Source: Ndtv