That Black Hole Merger That 'Shouldn't' Exist'? Scientists Propose a Wild Explanation

When LIGO broke news of an unintelligibly large black hole merger earlier this year, physicists were stunned but trusted they’d find an explanation someday. They probably didn’t expect the answer this soon, however.

But just as the supposedly impossible merger took place, a possible explanation for it has arrived surprisingly quickly. Astronomers ran different simulations of how a massive star could collapse into black holes that are of a smaller size than expected—including within a “mass gap” where black holes aren’t supposed to exist. The new analysis, published on November 10 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , demonstrates how magnetic fields can trim some of the mass from black holes, meaning black holes we thought were impossible can actually exist and probably form more oft