Capturing gravitational waves from unknown objects

Intense space-time ripples from the collision between a neutron star and a mysterious object have puzzled scientists .

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) located in the US has captured an unprecedented signal, revealing an object "floating" between two types of space "monsters".

According to Live Science, it is a powerful energetic object that can only be explained as a neutron star or a stellar-mass black hole .

Neutron stars and mysterious objects emit gravitational waves that vibrate space-time in a fusion dance - (Graphic image from the research team).

1. Neutron stars are zombies of dead giant stars, clustered into compact objects but with terrible magnetic fields.
2. Stellar-mass black holes are small-sized black holes but still much heavier than neutron stars. They can be the corpses of super-giant stars, but they can also be neutron stars that have "died" again.

With this object, the measurements have been completely puzzling: It is larger than the most massive neutron stars known, but smaller than the smallest black holes.

Specifically, it is something 2.5 to 4.5 times more massive than the Sun, which exceeds the neutron star mass limit of no more than 2.5 times the Sun.

However, the minimum mass limit for a black hole must be 5 times that of the Sun.

Some scientists have long suspected that something must exist in the mass gap between these two objects.

According to astrophysicist Michael Zevin from the Adler Planetarium (USA), a member of the multinational research team, this mysterious object may be the answer.

The authors say it is evidence for a more complex phase of stellar evolution than previously thought, when a massive neutron star dies again and collapses into a black hole.

Signals of the mysterious object were discovered thanks to its collision with a neutron star 650 million light years away.

This pair "dances" around each other, beginning to merge 650 million years ago. Therefore, after an equivalent amount of time, the gravitational waves that shook space-time from the merger reached Earth's observatory.