Replies

Pretty amazing, isn't it? That was the merger of two black holes each having a mass between 30 and 40 solar masses. With our first crude LIGO "telescope!" I know they're surprised at how large the black holes were. But it was really small potatoes as mergers go. In short order, I imagine we'll be able to observe every significant merger in the universe, including all the supermassive ones, as long as the crashing waves announcing the merger haven't already reached us, and as long as we have LIGOs up and running. And there's no need to point our LIGO scopes directly at the action in order to catch it. Can't imagine what kind of interesting stuff they're going to find.