Labs detect biggest black hole merger yet

The laser instruments operated by the international LIGO-VIRGO Collaboration have caught the gravitational waves emanating from the cataclysmic union of two black holes.

One was 66 times the mass of our Sun; the other was 85 times as massive. The resulting single black hole was 142 solar masses in sizes.

This movie simulates the movement of gravitational waves away from the scene of the collision. These ripples in the fabric of space-time took seven billion years to reach Earth and nudge the LIGO-VIRGO instruments.

Read more: Cosmic signal rattles Earth after 7 billion years