Meet GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal from the most massive binary black hole observed to date, travelling from 2-13 billion light years away.
- GW231123_135430 was detected on 23 November 2023 by H1 LIGO Hanford and L1 LIGO Livingston for a duration of 0.1 seconds.
- The merger involved two black holes, weighing approximately 100 and 140 times the mass of our Sun.
- Not only are these black holes massive, they are highly spinning. Each is rotating at ~80-90% of the maximum possible rate, corresponding to ~400,000 times Earth's rotation speed!
- Hierarchical origin story? The high masses and spins of GW231123's components indicate that they could come from previous black hole mergers.
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