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The odd couple: how a pair of mismatched black holes formed

A merger between two black holes of vastly different masses might have stemmed from a relationship between two unequal stars.
Star surrounded by colourful gas clouds — artist’s impression.

A binary system includes a star (centre; artist’s impression) and an unseen black hole. Such a system can evolve into a pairing of lopsided black holes. Credit: Katarzyna Drewniany

In an unprecedented sighting in 2019, gravitational-wave observatories detected the merger of two black holes of substantially different sizes, one of them more than three times as massive as the other. Now astrophysicists have calculated that the black holes could have originated as a binary star system.

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Nature 586, 173 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02792-6

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