A press conference will be held thursday (11 Feb 2016) by the LIGO team and a paper released. Allegedly (according to leaks) both LIGO sites saw an event corresponding to a merger via inspiral with later "kerr ringdown," of two black holes of masses 36 & 29 solar masses with final mass 62. Thus about 3 solar masses worth of energy were released in the form of gravity waves in a matter of seconds. The reconstructed orbital speed is almost exactly the speed of light. This is the first direct detection of gravity waves and presumably an excellent confirmation of general relativity. It took 14 years for LIGO to detect its first signal and allegedly they believe they can and will enhance its sensitivity further by the year 2021. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step)