We detected a very unusual signal, it was more like a bang. The signal was at such a low frequency that we knew that if it were a binary black hole, it must be really massive.
Since 1983 I have been involved in the search for gravitational waves. These waves were a prediction of Albert Einstein in 1916, although he quickly noted that they would be so small and weak that it would be impossible to observe them. It took us a century to detect them directly.
Normally our signals are what we call"chirps"—the frequency and amplitude of the signal increase with time. However the signal, which we now call"GW190521", was more like a bang. We also had to convince ourselves that it was not something else, like a supernova, a cosmic string, or a really exotic source. Most importantly, we had to be sure that it was not just detector noise. The very short length of the signal was also a challenge. It took us more than a year to carefully examine the signal, and we compared it to the most sophisticated simulated signals from veryWhat we found surprised and excited us, but also induced universal head scratching.
Another surprise was the mass of the newly formed black hole, which we measured to be 142 M⊙. We have previously observed smaller stellar mass black holes, namely with masses up to a few tens of solar mass. We also know that there are super massive black holes in the center of galaxies, with masses of millions to billions of solar masses. Our galaxy has an enormous black hole of four million M⊙.
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