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March 5, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The universe is filled with a cacophony of colliding black holes<\/p>\n A new catalog of gravitational waves more than doubles the known number of these spacetime ripples<\/p>\n By Claire Cameron edited by Clara Moskowitz<\/span><\/p>\n MARK GARLICK\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images<\/p>\n When black holes collide, the crash generates ripples in the fabric of spacetime\u2014gravitational waves. These distortions travel far out into the universe, but by the time they reach Earth, they have become faint, making them extremely hard to detect. Thanks to a global network of observatories\u2014called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), Virgo and the Kamioka Gravitational-Wave Detector (KAGRA)\u2014scientists have found scores of these tiny wobbles in spacetime. And now the collaboration has released its latest dataset, more than doubling the number of detections.<\/p>\n The results reveal that our universe is reverberating with cosmic collisions. Some of the waves stem from pairs of black holes colliding, and others appear to have come from crashing black holes and neutron stars\u2014the dense, dead cores of massive stars\u2014as well as from two neutron stars smashing together.<\/p>\n The new catalog also reveals a greater variety of known black holes, including some that appear lopsided, and others that spin incredibly fast. Together, the observations are \u201cphenomenal,\u201d says Zsuzsanna M\u00e1rka, an associate research scientist at Columbia University, who was previously involved in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Ryan Nowicki\/Bill Smith\/Karan Jani\/LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA\/Vanderbilt University\/EMIT\/NSF<\/p>\n \u201cWe are really pushing the edges, and are seeing things that are more massive, spinning faster, and are more astrophysically interesting and unusual,\u201d said Daniel Williams, a research fellow at the University of Glasgow and a member of the collaboration, to MIT News.<\/p>\n The expanded set of detections enables astronomers to test Albert Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity, which holds that gravity is a geometric property of spacetime.<\/p>\n Doing so can help answer one the holy grails of the field, says Szabolcs M\u00e1rka, a professor of physics at Columbia University, who has worked on LIGO and is married to Zsuzsanna M\u00e1rka. \u201cWhat is beyond Einstein\u2019s general relativity theory? Large catalogs are paving the way towards deep understanding of these enigma,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n According to the theory, mass warps the shape of spacetime, causing objects to travel on curving pathways near heavy masses. The gravitational waves produced by these cosmic collisions will reveal new details about this warping that can confirm or challenge the predictions of Einstein\u2019s theory.<\/p>\n The catalog will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, and a paper about it was recently published online in the journal. Soon, it may be possible to release real-time data from the collaboration, the M\u00e1rkas say.<\/p>\n \u201cEach new gravitational-wave detection allows us to unlock another piece of the universe\u2019s puzzle in ways we couldn\u2019t just a decade ago,\u201d said Lucy Thomas, a co-author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology\u2019s LIGO Lab, to MIT News. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly exciting to think about what astrophysical mysteries and surprises we can uncover with future observing runs.”<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 5, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The universe is filled with a cacophony of colliding black holes A new catalog of gravitational waves more than doubles the known number of these spacetime ripples By Claire Cameron edited by Clara Moskowitz MARK GARLICK\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images When black holes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[5178,23614,4692,5177,356,23615,19459,23613,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-46089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-discovered","9":"tag-einsteins","10":"tag-general","11":"tag-newly","12":"tag-put","13":"tag-relativity","14":"tag-ripples","15":"tag-spacetime","16":"tag-test"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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