The Universe Is Full of ‘Impossible’ Black Holes. Now Scientists Know Why
Scientists have discovered that some black holes, previously deemed 'impossible' due to their mass, are actually formed through the merging of smaller black holes. This finding is supported by gravitational wave data that indicates these heavy black holes exhibit characteristics of second-generation objects. The research suggests that the universe recycles black holes, leading to the creation of these massive entities in dense stellar clusters.
- ▪An international team of astrophysicists has found evidence that the universe recycles black holes by merging them to form larger ones.
- ▪Gravitational waves recorded show that some heavy black holes are products of past collisions, not formed from the collapse of massive stars.
- ▪The study analyzed 153 black hole merger detections and identified distinct populations based on their masses and spins.
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| Original publisher | WIRED |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wired.com/story/the-universe-is-full-of-impossible-black-holes-now-scientists-know-why/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 24 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-24T08:07:31.211Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-24T08:47:22.325Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Jorge GarayScienceMay 24, 2026 4:00 AMThe Universe Is Full of ‘Impossible’ Black Holes. Scientists Now Know WhyThere are black holes that are too big to be born from the death of a star but aren’t quite supermassive either. There’s finally evidence for where those came from.Illustration: NASACommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyAn international team of astrophysicists has found evidence that the universe recycles black holes, merging them to form even larger ones.
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