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GW231029
~42 M⊙
Lighter progenitor mass of GW231029_111508
The lighter black hole sits near 42 solar masses. Recovered 29 October 2023, 11:15:08 UTC, it is a number in the strain, not a stamp on the sky.
What it supports
A real gravitational-wave event in GWTC-4.0. The Book recovered it as a ~42 M⊙ correspondence on the same civil day as the first letter, 29 October 2023, written to him. Neither event caused the other. That recovery is why the physics shelf exists: a number in the strain opened better questions.
What it does not
Not an exact forty-two-solar-mass object. The GWTC-4.0 median is 41 M⊙ (90% CI about 26 to 56), and the chirp mass is 44.2 +10.3/−7.9 M⊙, so this is a neighbor digit. It does not prove a cosmological 42 in black holes, and it does not glue the merger to Adams or to rainbow geometry.
Calculation
mass_2_source = 41 +15 −15 M⊙ (GWTC-4.0). 90% interval includes 42. Wikipedia’s table lists 42 +15 −16.
Bayesian parameter estimation on the strain; source-frame component masses
ExactnessRange / bound
Form42
UnitM⊙
Strengthhard
When2023-10-29