The first black hole collisions, announced in February, involved black holes 36 and 29 times as massive as the sun. In the new merger, black holes roughly 14 and 8 times as massive as the sun circled and combined into a single spinning black hole 21 times as massive as the sun. Now it seems that black hole collisions may be frequent facts of nature, with humanity at least tuned in to the darker, deeper vibrations of nature. On Wednesday, the same group of astronomers announced that they had detected a second pair of black holes that devoured each other in another cosmic cataclysm 1.4 billion years ago. PhotoWhen astronomers announced in February that they had detected the ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves from a pair of black holes colliding, the discovery was hailed as the advent of a new window on nature.

Source: New York Times June 15, 2016 17:15 UTC