The animation shows the coalescence and merger of a lower mass-gap black hole (dark grey surface) with a neutron star with colors ranging from dark orange (1 million tons per cubic centimeter) to white (600 million tons per cubic centimeter). The animation is accompanied by the gravitational wave signal represented with a set of strain amplitude values of plus-polarization using colors from dark blue to cyan. The gravitational waveform is shown at the bottom of the video, with a moving marker displaying the time relative to the merger. © I. Markin (Potsdam University), T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)

An LVK news story about this event can be found at www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20240405