1 of 1
Story summary
- Astronomers identified three distinct groups of merging black holes from data on over 150 gravitational-wave detections.
- The largest group comprises 79% of mergers and likely arises from isolated binary systems.
- A second group, about 14.5%, forms in crowded environments like globular clusters and shows chaotic spins.
- The smallest group, around 2.5%, involves hierarchical mergers of black holes with unequal masses.
- Findings appear on arXiv.
