Astronomers Discover Rare Merger Between Neutron Star and Lightweight Black Hole

An illustration of a lightweight black hole and a neutron star . The emitted gravitational waves are shown in colors from dark blue to cyan.

More specifically, a signal detected in a pocket of the universe roughly 650 million light-years from Earth indicates a rare merger between a neutron star and what astronomers suspect is a surprisingly lightweight black hole. The pair would have danced around one another and merged about 650 million years ago, generating ripples in the fabric of space and time known as gravitational waves. These waves were sensed and flagged on May 29, 2023 by a network of antennas in Japan, Italy and the U.S.

This discovery"hints at this 'mass gap' being less empty than astronomers previously thought," Michael Zevin, an astrophysicist at the Adler Planetarium, said in a "It does appear that it could be possible now with these observations," Goetz said. Perhaps, he says, astronomers need to tweak the models — or maybe"we really do have a more complicated evolution of a heavy neutron star that evolved into a black hole.", astronomers announced the first conclusive detection of gravitational waves created by a collision which involved a stellar remnant right in the mass gap range.

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