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The Universe Is Abuzz with Giant Gravitational Waves, and Scientists Just Heard Them (Maybe)

60-Second Science

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The Gravitational Wave Background Signal From Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

This is the first time we've seen this particular kind of gravitational wave signal. If it really does come from the cosmic mergers, supermassive lockhole binaries, it means that supermassive lockholes eventually do mergers with each other. And until now, this has been a huge open question in the field. This would be the first definitive proof that not only do they merge, but they've been merging for hundreds of millions of years and need detected by LIGO.

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