LIGO detected the largest black hole collision

[John Clark]

On November 23, 2023 the LIGO gravitational wave observatories in Hanford Washington and Livingston Louisiana detected the largest Black Hole collision ever found, one had a mass of about 103 solar masses and the other was 137 solar masses, and it resulted in an intermediate sized Black Hole of approximately 225 Solar masses; the missing 15 Solar masses having been converted into the energy of gravitational waves. One of the Black Holes was spinning at 80% the speed of light and the other at 90%.

It's not thought that single stars can produce Black Holes larger than about 60 solar masses because stars large enough to do that would end their lives in a Pair-Instability Supernova, the brightest type of supernova, and they are so violent they blow themselves entirely apart and leave behind nothing, neither a neutron star nor a Black Hole. So Black Holes of that size must've come from the merger of smaller Black Holes.

Incidentally the Trump administration wants to mothball one of the two LIGO detectors, probably the one in Washington because that is not a red state. 

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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[John Clark]

GW231123: a Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190-265 M