LIGO and Virgo observed gravitational waves from neutron star-black hole binaries

(from https://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-NSBHDiscovery/)

On January 5th 2020, the Advanced LIGO detector in Livingston, Louisiana in the US and the Advanced Virgo detector in Italy observed gravitational waves produced by the last few decaying orbits (inspiral), followed by the merger of the neutron star with the black hole. Just ten days later a second gravitational-wave signal from the inspiral and merger of a neutron star with a black hole, was observed, this time by both Advanced LIGO detectors (in Livingston and also in Hanford, Washington) and the Virgo detector. This is the first time gravitational waves have been observed from a mix of neutron stars and black holes. These new discoveries are nick-named GW200105 and GW200115.

The masses of neutron stars and black holes measured through
gravitational waves and electromagnetic observations.
(Image credit: LIGO-Virgo & Frank Elavsky, Aaron Geller, Northwestern University)
(See the science summary for details.)

Summary of our knowledge of the component masses of the objects
that produced GW200105 and GW200115.
(See the science summary for details.)

See the science summary  “A NEW SOURCE OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES: NEUTRON STAR–BLACK HOLE BINARIES” for details.

Read a free preprint of the full scientific article here.