A Cosmic “Barcode” Has Indeed Been Detected Around Black Holes – Futura-Sciences
February 16, 2026
7 min
This artwork imagines the front-row seats for GW250114, a powerful collision between two black holes observed by LIGO, the U.S. National Science Foundation. It depicts the view from one of the black holes as it spirals toward its cosmic partner. Ten years after LIGO’s historic detection of gravitational waves, the observatory’s improved detectors allowed it to “hear” this celestial collision with unprecedented clarity. The gravitational wave data enabled scientists to distinguish multiple subtle sounds, resonating like a cosmic bell across the universe (imagined here as musical wires spiraling inward toward the center). Although LIGO was the only observatory online during GW250114, it now operates regularly in a network with other gravitational wave detectors, including Virgo in Europe and Kagra in Japan. © Aurore Simonnet (SSU/EdEon)/LVK/URI
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