# Scientists just released the biggest gravitational wave catalog ever, with 390 cosmic collisions

> The LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration has released GWTC-5.0, the largest gravitational wave catalog assembled so far. The new release adds 161 newly detected events and brings the total number of confirmed gravitational wave detections to 390, giving astronomers their richest...

Canonical URL: https://www.argo.net/scientists-just-released-the-biggest-gravitational-wave-catalog-ever-with-390-cosmic-collisions/
Byline: LIGO Scientific Collaboration
Published: 2026-07-17T19:50:02+00:00
Categories: News, Space

![Dramatic CGI rendering of a black hole with swirling accretion disk](https://www.argo.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/black_hole_merger.jpg)

The **LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration** has released [GWTC-5.0](https://ligo.org/gwtc-5-0-updated-ligo-virgo-kagra-catalog-sets-new-records-in-precision-gravitational-wave-astronomy/), the largest gravitational wave catalog assembled so far. The new release adds 161 newly detected events and brings the total number of confirmed gravitational wave detections to 390, giving astronomers their richest view yet of black holes colliding across the Universe.

The scale matters because gravitational wave astronomy has moved fast. A decade ago, scientists had one historic signal from two merging black holes. Now they have hundreds of ripples in spacetime to compare. That larger sample is helping researchers test gravity, trace black hole origins and turn violent cosmic collisions into tools for measuring the Universe itself.

These signals were recorded by the LIGO detectors in the United States, Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan. Together, the observatories form a global listening network for **gravitational waves**, the tiny stretches and squeezes in spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

## The biggest gravitational wave haul yet

GWTC-5.0 marks a major expansion of the gravitational wave record. The catalog includes observations from the second part of the fourth observing run, covering detections made between April 10, 2024 and January 28, 2025. During that period, the LVK network found 161 new signals.

For astronomers, the jump from a handful of events to hundreds changes the kind of questions they can ask. Early gravitational wave science focused on proving that these signals could be detected at all. Today, researchers can study patterns in black hole masses, spins, distances and merger rates.

Dr. Daniel Williams, a research fellow at the **University of Glasgow**, captured that shift in the university's announcement. "Just ten years ago we made the first detection of gravitational waves from one of these events," he said. The new catalog shows how rapidly the field has grown since that first signal arrived at Earth in 2015.

The release also reflects the enormous technical effort behind each detection. The instruments measure distortions far smaller than the width of an atom across kilometer-scale laser arms. To turn that faint motion into a catalog entry, scientists must separate real astrophysical signals from local noise, detector glitches and statistical false alarms.

## 161 new black hole merger signals

The 161 new events in GWTC-5.0 are consistent with **black hole mergers**. In these events, two black holes orbit each other, lose energy as gravitational waves, spiral inward and finally collide. The final moment releases a burst of spacetime ripples that can cross billions of light-years before reaching Earth.

Each signal carries information about the system that produced it. The shape of the wave tells scientists about the masses of the black holes, how fast they were spinning and how far away the merger took place. Stronger or cleaner signals can also reveal the behavior of the newborn black hole formed after the collision.

The new catalog gives researchers a broad population to study. Some black holes appear in familiar mass ranges. Others sit in more unusual territory, where their properties may point to special formation histories. With enough events, astronomers can begin to separate common black hole pairings from rarer systems.

This population view is especially valuable because black holes are invisible by nature. Ordinary telescopes can see their effects on surrounding gas and stars, yet many merging black holes occur in dark environments. Gravitational waves let astronomers detect these systems through their motion and gravity alone.

## A record-sharp location in the sky

One event in the catalog, known as **GW240615**, set a record for sky localization. Detected on June 15, 2024, it came from a merger of black holes with masses of about 26 and 30 times the mass of the Sun. Scientists narrowed its position to an area of only six square degrees.

That precision is striking for a source more than three billion light-years away. Gravitational wave detectors work by comparing when a signal reaches different observatories and how strongly each detector responds. When more detectors are operating together, the network can triangulate the direction more tightly.

Better localization helps astronomers in several ways. It can guide optical, infrared, X-ray and radio telescopes toward the same region of sky. Black hole mergers usually lack bright flashes of light, although rapid follow-up still matters. If a merger involves matter, such as a neutron star, the sky position can be crucial.

Sharper positions also improve the statistical study of cosmic environments. Researchers can compare gravitational wave locations with galaxy catalogs. Over time, that may help reveal where different types of black hole binaries tend to live and how their host galaxies influence their formation.

## The loudest gravitational wave ever recorded

GWTC-5.0 also includes **GW250114**, the clearest gravitational wave signal recorded so far. The signal reached Earth on January 14, 2025, after two black holes with masses of about 32 and 34 Suns merged more than one billion light-years away.

Scientists describe a signal's clarity using a signal-to-noise ratio. GW250114 reached 76.9, making it an exceptionally strong detection by gravitational wave standards. That gave researchers a unusually detailed view of the merger's inspiral, collision and final ringdown.

The ringdown is the phase after the newly formed black hole settles into a stable shape. It vibrates in ways that resemble the fading tone of a struck bell. Those vibrations can test whether the remnant behaves as general relativity predicts.

According to the catalog announcement, GW250114 enabled the most precise gravitational-wave test of general relativity so far. It also provided strong support for Stephen Hawking's black hole area theorem, which predicts that the total area of black hole event horizons increases after a merger.

The event's strength made it a rare laboratory for extreme gravity. On Earth, physicists cannot build black holes or reproduce the conditions near an event horizon. The Universe supplies those experiments naturally and detectors such as LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA record the results.

## Evidence for second-generation black holes

Among the most intriguing results in GWTC-5.0 is evidence for **second-generation black holes**. These are black holes that may have formed from earlier black hole mergers, then later merged again. Such systems can build heavier black holes over time.

Two events, GW241011 and GW241110, drew attention because their spin measurements point toward this kind of history. In each case, the larger black hole may have been created in a previous merger. That would make the later collision part of a cosmic family tree.

This matters because black holes formed directly from dying massive stars should follow certain patterns. Their masses and spins reflect the lives of their parent stars. A black hole formed from a previous merger can carry a different spin signature and may land in a mass range that is harder to explain through a single stellar collapse.

Clusters of stars may provide a natural setting for repeated mergers. In dense stellar environments, black holes can sink toward the center and encounter one another. A merger remnant can remain in the cluster if it avoids being kicked out by gravitational recoil. It may then pair with another black hole and merge again.

With more detections, scientists can estimate how common these multi-step histories are. That could help explain how some black holes grow into unusually massive objects long before they reach the supermassive scale found in the centers of galaxies.

## A new way to measure the universe

Gravitational waves can also help measure the expansion of the Universe. Each merger signal contains information about distance. If scientists can also connect a signal to a location or galaxy population, they can use it to estimate the cosmic expansion rate.

Alex Papadopoulos, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Glasgow, described the goal clearly. "The rate of this expansion is described by a value called the Hubble constant," he said. The Hubble constant is one of modern cosmology's central numbers because it links distance with how fast galaxies appear to recede.

Traditional measurements of the **Hubble constant** use methods such as supernovae, variable stars, or the cosmic microwave background. Gravitational waves offer an independent route. Papadopoulos noted that "Gravitational waves allow us to measure this by estimating how far away merging objects are."

The method is powerful because gravitational waves encode distance directly through their amplitude. A nearby merger produces a stronger signal than a similar event farther away. The challenge is that distance and source orientation can be tangled together, so larger catalogs and better detector networks improve the measurement.

GWTC-5.0 also shows how analysis methods are advancing alongside the detectors. Faster software can test many possible signal models and source properties. That speed becomes essential as catalogs grow from hundreds of events toward thousands.

The new catalog gives astronomers a deeper record of cosmic collisions and a sharper tool for asking how black holes form. It also shows where the field is heading. Every observing run adds more signals, more unusual systems and more chances to test gravity under the most extreme conditions known.