Wednesday, September 2, 2020
LIGO and Virgo announce first confirmed detection of intermediate mass black hole
The LIGO/Virgo collaboration has announced another gravitational wave detection, the event being called GW190521. The nomenclature is based on the date of the detection, which was 21 May, 2019. The two LIGO detectors in the USA and the Virgo detector in Italy all picked up the gravitational waves originating from the merger of two black holes. This particular detection is interesting for a number of reasons. It is the largest ever black hole detected through gravitational waves. The remnant object, which was the result of the collision, weighs 142 solar masses, and is the first intermediate mass black hole to be detected. The two black holes that merged were 66 and 85 solar masses, and these two objects as well are in mass ranges of black holes that were never before seen. The event was so colossal that 8 solar masses were radiated as gravitational waves, which were detected by the three observatories on Earth. When it comes to black holes, Most detections of gravitational waves from black hole mergers are described as “chirps”. This one was so massive that it is being described as a bang. The signal observed was of an extremely short duration, lasting less than one tenth of a second. It originated from a source that is 17 billion light years away, in the direction of the constellation of Phoenix. However, the signal itself was formed when the universe was only half its current age. This is the farthest source from which gravitational waves have been detected by LIGO and Virgo.
The blue black holes are observed by gravitational wave instruments, with the new signal highlighted. The purple objects are black holes observed using electromagnetic instruments. Neutron stars detected through electromagnetic waves are in yellow, while those detected using gravitational wave instruments are in orange.
Credit: LIGO-Virgo/Northwestern U./Frank Elavsky & Aaron Geller
Intermediate mass black holesThe remnant belongs to a category of elusive objects that scientists have been hunting for years. Most of the black holes that we know of are supermassive black holes, similar to Sagittarius A* at the centre of the Milky Way. Most of the supermassive black holes are also at the centre of galaxies, where there is plenty of material for them to feed on. They are millions to billions of times as massive as the Sun. The process of the formation of supermassive black holes are unclear, but it is believed to be linked to their locations in the hearts of galaxies. Scientists do not know if they are also formed from the collapse of stars, grow from stellar mass black holes that have plenty of other stars to feed on, or are formed through a previously unknown process. The other kind of black holes are called stellar mass black holes, which are the remains of dead stars. When a star goes nova, it can outshine an entire galaxy for a few weeks, purging most of the material and energy from itself, leaving behind a core, that can implode within itself if it has sufficient mass. A stellar mass black hole has a mass equivalent to anywhere between 3 to 10 Suns. Between the stellar mass black holes and the supermassive black holes, there have been no confirmed detections. That is to say, black holes between 100 to 1000 solar masses were not detected previously. These bodies, that were hypothetical so far, are called intermediate mass black holes, and there were only a handful of candidates. The remnant of the new collision event, weighing in at 142 solar masses, is clearly an intermediate mass black hole. Astrophysicist Christopher Berry from Northwestern University says, “Long have we searched for an intermediate-mass black hole to bridge the gap between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. Now, we have proof that intermediate-mass black holes do exist.” The detection has some stunning implications. Scientists will have to rework the existing theories for the formation and evolution of black holes, now that we know that intermediate mass black holes do exist. Researchers know of no known way in which an intermediate mass black hole could possibly form from the remains of a dead star. It is an object so massive that it simply should not be allowed. Another important implication is that scientists are now a step closer to understanding how supermassive black holes are formed, because they now have an intermediate mass black hole that can be studied, an object that bridges the gap between stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes.
A hierarchy of merging black holes leading to the observed signal. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC).
Pair instability gapApart from the mass gap between stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes, there is another mass gap where again there have been few detections of objects. In stars that go nova followed by a core collapse, a star that weighs as much as 130 solar masses can at best produce a black hole that are up to 65 solar masses. Of the original star was more massive than 130 solar masses, then it would result in a phenomenon called pair instability, where the photons in the core turn into an electron and antielectron pair. The resulting nova is so explosive that even the core gets vaporized, leaving behind only energy, clouds and dust. There is no black hole. Even more massive stars would just collapse into black holes directly, because of their immense gravitation. So a 200 solar mass star would collapse to a black hole of 120 solar masses. This is why theoretically, there should not be any black holes between 65 to 120 solar masses, which is known as the pair instability gap. Yet, both the objects that merged to form the remnant, are in the pair instability gaps. These two black holes also have no business existing! Berry explains how these black holes in the pair instability gap can potentially form, “there are many ideas about how to get around this — merging two stars together, embedding the black hole in a thick disc of material it can swallow, or primordial black holes created in the aftermath of the Big Bang. The idea I really like is a hierarchical merger where we have a black hole formed from the previous merger of two smaller black holes.” Nelson Christensen, director of the Artemis Laboratory at the Nice Observatory in France, says, “The fact that we’re seeing a black hole in this mass gap will make a lot of astrophysicists scratch their heads and try to figure out how these black holes were made.” Out of all these the hierarchical merger is at present the most favoured theory. The two progenitor black holes in the pair instability mass gap, that merged to form the remnant, were themselves the remnants of previous mergers between black holes, which could have been stellar mass black holes. The resulting object could be the result of a series of mergers between black holes, where they became increasingly larger. The two gaps in the observed masses of black holes so far, are also known as the upper gap and the lower gap. The observations indicate that it was indeed a merger of two black holes, but the short duration of the signal can mean that the GW190521 event was not a black hole merger at all. There are two types of searchers for the signals detected at the LIGO and VIrgo detectors. The first is an algorithm that looks specifically for binary mergers, such as between neutron stars or black holes. The second is a burst detection algorithm that basically looks for any kind of event that produces gravitational waves. The detection of GW190521 was picked up by the burst algorithm for searching, which raises the possibility that the gravitational waves may not have been caused by the merger of two black holes at all. The exotic interpretations include the source being a collapsing star, or a cosmic string produced during the dawn of the Universe, during a period of rapid inflation just after the Big Bang. Alan Weinstein, a physics professor at Caltech says, “Since we first turned on LIGO, everything we’ve observed with confidence has been a collision of black holes or neutron stars. This is the one event where our analysis allows the possibility that this event is not such a collision. Although this event is consistent with being from an exceptionally massive binary black hole merger, and alternative explanations are disfavored, it is pushing the boundaries of our confidence. And that potentially makes it extremely exciting. Because we have all been hoping for something new, something unexpected, that could challenge what we’ve learned already. This event has the potential for doing that.”
Sources: LIGO, Virgo, Caltech, Northwestern University
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SoftBank Vision Fund 2 leads $100 million Series C in digital therapeutics company Biofourmis
Biofourmis, which combines AI-based data analytics and biosensors to monitor the progress of medical treatments, has raised funding from one of the world’s most high-profile investors. The digital therapeutics company, which launched in Singapore and is now headquartered in Boston, announced today it closed a $100 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from returning investors Openspace Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Sequoia Capital and EDBI.
The company’s last funding announcement was in May 2019 for a $35 million Series A led by Sequoia India and MassMutual, the venture capital arm of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Biofourmis’ platform combines AI-based health analytics and wearable sensors to help healthcare providers gauge patient progress and the effectiveness of drugs and other treatments. The company, founded in 2015 by chief executive Kuldeep Singh Rajput and managing director Wendou Niu, said this is the largest funding for a healthtech startup in Southeast Asia to date. In addition to Boston and Singapore, Biofourmis also has offices in Switzerland and India.
Since its Series A funding, Biofourmis has grown through a series of partnerships with seven pharmaceutical companies and 10 health systems, including Novartis, AstraZeneca, and Mayo Clinic. Biofourmis also made several acquisitions, including wearable biosensor startup Biovotion and Gaido Health, a digital therapeutics company for cancer patients.
The funding will be used to validate and bring new digital therapeutic solutions for cardiology, respiratory, oncology and pain treatments to the market. Biofourmis also plans to expand in the United States and Asia-Pacific markets including China and Japan.
Biofourmis also said today that it is realigning its internal operations into two verticals: Biofourmis Therapeutics, which partners with companies like AstraZeneca and Chugai to created software that can help increased the efficacy of drug treatments, and Biofourmis Health, a “home hospital” platform that allows health providers to monitor patients remotely as they transition out of acute care. Biofourmis Health focuses on heart failure, coronary artery disease, respiratory illnesses and cancer.
EDBI is an investment firm linked to Singapore’s government, and looks for startups that can help advance the country’s industries, including healthcare. Biofourmis’ funding from EDBI is a strategic investment, and its technology is being used in Singapore as it copes with repeated outbreaks of COVID-19.
Announced last July, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 launched with $108 billion to invest in AI-based technology. The first Vision Fund is coping with heavy losses stemming in large part from its investments in WeWork and Uber, so the performance of Vision Fund 2’s focus on markets including healthtech (its other investments in the space include pharmaceutical delivery startup Alto and life sciences company Karius) is being closely watched.
In a press statement, SoftBank Investment Advisers partner Greg Moon said, “We believe predictive health is the future of medicine and Biofourmis is a leader in using AI and machine learning-based models to advance digital therapeutics.”
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SpaceX targets another Starlink launch Thursday to continue record pace
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Falcon 9 B1060 and 60 Starlink satellites standing on LC-39A in preparation for launch at 9:29an EDT on September 1, 2020. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]
SpaceX launched three missions in August—two carrying its own Starlink satellite payloads, and the SAOCOM 1B mission for Argentina. Now, beginning as early as Thursday morning, SpaceX may go for three more launches this month to continue building out its Starlink satellite-Internet constellation.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 8:46am EDT (12:46 UTC) Thursday from Kennedy Space Center while carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. This will be the 12th launch of a large batch of Starlink satellites, although the first 60 satellites launched in May 2019 were, to some extent, a test bed for future iterations. After this mission, the company will have placed more than 700 of its satellites into orbit to provide broadband service.
The need to build out a constellation of thousands of satellites, with the eventual goal of providing broadband Internet across the globe, has allowed SpaceX to fly its Falcon 9 rocket frequently this year. So far in 2020, the company has launched 15 missions, including the suborbital Crew Dragon in-flight abort test on January 19. Of those, nine have been Starlink missions.
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