The #GWTC3 paper represents many years of work by our scientists. At 89 pages it is chock-full of science! We are extremely grateful to the referees who peer-reviewed our work
Searching our data, we found many #GravitationalWave signals from binaries of black holes and neutron stars. These chirps are shown in this plot by Sudarshan Ghonge & Karan Jani (featured as an Astronomy Picture of the Day https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211207.html)
Our #GravitationalWave catalog has grown rapidly since our 1st detection in 2015. GWTC-1 had 11 probable candidates, GWTC-2.1 had 55, and #GWTC3 has 90!
GWTC-4 will include results from the first half of our on-going observing run (data collected will collect data until 16 January 2024)
Gravitational-waves provide a new tool for astronomy. What has it taught us so far? Catch up on all the science from #GWTC3 with our science summary, featuring a small selection of some of our most exciting #GravitationalWave candidates
This Orrery created by Zoheyr Doctor illustrates the masses of our O3b #GWTC3 candidates. More massive binaries slowly waltz, while lower mass ones energetically swing
Highlights of #GWTC3: our factsheet picks out some of the most interesting #GravitationalWave candidates from our last observing run. Which is your favourite?
This sonification of our #GWTC3 results uses different notes for different masses of black holes and neutron stars: the more massive they are, the deeper the note. You'll hear two notes together, followed by a deeper one to represent a binary merging
"Gravitational wave astronomy introduced us to a whole new way to observe the Universe, and a lot of answers to very big questions indeed are possible to find now. We're just getting started."
"And they include some real monsters: two events involved black holes with masses more than 60 times that of the Sun. For astrophysicists, the mere existence of these black holes is problematic"
Davide Castelvecchi on our discoveries when #GWTC3 released
“Each new observing run brings new discoveries and surprises. The third observing run saw gravitational wave detection becoming an everyday thing, but I still think each detection is exciting!" - Hannah Middleton