The recoil imparted as two black holes collide has now been measured using gravitational waves .

It's the first-ever measurement to capture not just the velocity at which the newly formed black hole was punted across space, but also the direction, offering a new tool for understanding black hole mergers.

From the 2019 gravitational wave event GW190412, astronomers have determined that the lopsidedness of the collision kicked the black hole at speeds exceeding 50 kilometers (31 miles) per second.

"This is one of the few phenomena in astrophysics where we're not just detecting something – we're reconstructing the full 3D motion of an object that's billions of light-years away, using only ripples in spacetime," says astrophysicist Koustav Chandra of Pennsylvania State Universit

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