Fri Jul 18 03:49:14 UTC 2025: Okay, here’s a news article summarizing the provided text, suitable for publication in The Hindu:
**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
**Giant Black Hole Collision Challenges Stellar Evolution Theories, Say Scientists**
**NEW DELHI, July 18, 2025** – An international team of scientists has announced the detection of gravitational waves from the most massive black hole merger ever observed, an event that is challenging existing theories about the formation of these cosmic behemoths.
The discovery, dubbed GW231123, stems from a signal detected on November 23, 2023, by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGO) in the United States, along with the Virgo and KAGRA observatories in Italy and Japan. The signal, lasting just a tenth of a second, originated approximately two billion light-years away and indicated the collision of two extraordinarily large black holes.
Detailed analysis revealed the heavier black hole had a mass estimated at 137 times that of our Sun (within a range of 120-159), while the lighter one was estimated at 103 times the mass of our Sun (within a range of 51-123). What makes this event particularly significant is that the heavier black hole’s mass falls within the “pair instability mass gap,” a range between roughly 60 and 130 solar masses where current stellar evolution models predict black holes should not form from the collapse of single stars.
“This is a groundbreaking discovery that forces us to re-evaluate our understanding of how black holes are born,” said a leading researcher involved in the project. “Finding a black hole with a mass in the forbidden gap suggests that other formation mechanisms are at play.”
Scientists are exploring various explanations, including hierarchical mergers (where smaller black holes merge multiple times), stellar mergers, or even the possibility that these black holes formed in the early universe through mechanisms unrelated to stellar collapse. The rapid spin of the black holes lends credence to hierarchical merger scenarios.
The team plans to continue studying the data and searching for similar events to refine their models. This discovery opens new avenues for research into the extreme physics of black holes and the life cycles of the universe’s most massive stars.
**About the Gravitational Wave Observatories:**
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a U.S.-based project designed and operated by Caltech and MIT with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Virgo is a European project, and KAGRA is based in Japan. Together, these observatories form a global network for detecting gravitational waves.
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First Piper 