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Arav D

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First Observation of Gravitational Waves

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Warped Space and Time Around Colliding Black Holes

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This computer simulation shows the warping of space and time around two colliding black holes observed by LIGO on September 14, 2015. LIGO detected gravitational waves generated by this black hole merger-humanity's first contact with gravitational waves and black-hole collisions. Gravitational waves are ripples in the shape of space and flow of time.

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Galaxy :)

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AWESOME PICTURE OF A BLACK HOLE ABSORBING A STAR

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AWESOME PICTURE OF A BLACK HOLE ABSORBING A STAR

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Arav D

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RX J0806.3+1527 Gravitational Wave Merger

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This artist concept depicts two white dwarfs called RX J0806.3+1527 or J0806, swirling closer together, traveling in excess of a million miles per hour. As their orbit gets smaller and smaller, leading up to a merger, the system should release more and more energy in gravitational waves.

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Gravitational waves announcement: Scientists confirm detection of ripples in spacetime

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Gravitational ripples in the fabric of spacetime, first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago, have now been detected by scientists who believe the discovery opens new vistas into the "dark" side of the Universe.

Physicists around the world confirmed they had detected unambiguous signals of gravitational waves emanating from the collision of two massive black holes 1.3 billion light years away in deep space.

As the two black holes spiralled together in a violent collision that was over in 20 thousandths of a second, immense amounts of matter - equivalent to the mass of three suns - were instantly converted into energy.

This sent shock waves travelling through space for 1.3 billion years until they were picked up by gravitational-wave instruments on Earth on 14 September last year.

The detection of gravitational waves not only confirms Einstein's general theory of relativity, it amounts to the first direct detection of a pair of colliding black holes, the mysterious structures in space that are so dense they exert a gravitational force from which nothing - not even light - can escape.

"We're opening a window on the universe, the window of gravitational wave astronomy. It's the first time the Universe has spoken to us in gravitational waves. This was a scientific moonshot and we did it. We landed on the Moon," said David Reitze, executive director of the US's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (Ligo), who announced the discovery at a press conference in Washington.

Two sets of super-sensitive instruments at two locations in the US both detected the same sub-atomic movements in the space-time continuum - the mathematical model that weaves space and time into a single entity - caused by the gravitational waves as they stretched and compressed the Earth.

The first gravitational-wave signal was picked up at the Ligo's Hanford observatory in Washington State and then, seven thousands of a second later, an identical signal was picked up at Ligo's Livingston site in Louisiana some 2,000 miles away.

This twin detection of the same signal was critical for statistical confirmation of the discovery.

"You can only believe they are real if you observe them at the same time in two different places," said Professor Gabriela Gonzalez of Louisiana State University, the spokesperson for Ligo.

"We can hear gravitational waves. We can hear the Universe...that's the chirp we've been looking for. That's the signal we have measured. It's monumental - like Galileo using a telescope for the first time," Professor Gonzalez said.

The direct detection of gravitational waves will now enable astronomers to see the Universe in a different light, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to observe the "dark" side of the cosmos, almost back to the beginning of time itself.

It will enable scientists to build a network of gravitational-wave observatories both on Earth and in space that will see through the darkest voids of the cosmos.

It will give astronomers the ability to witness collisions between black holes and the interactions of massive stellar objects, even providing them with a time machine to look back almost to the earliest moments after the Big Bang 13.7bn years ago when the super-heated Universe began to cool down to form the first atoms.

"This detection marks not only a confirmation of Einstein's theories but most exciting is that it is marks the birth of gravitational astronomy," said Professor Sheila Rowan, director of the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research.

"This expands hugely the way we can observe the cosmos, and the kinds of physics and astrophysics we can do."

Einstein first predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 as a result of his general theory of relativity, the most commonly accepted description of gravity, published a year earlier.

However, despite decades of searching, gravitational waves proved too elusive for the most sensitive of gravity-detecting instruments - until now.

Scientists from Ligo confirmed in Washington what had been rumour for several weeks.

They had witnessed changes in their laser measurements at Ligo's two observatories that could only be due to gravitational waves stretching and contracting space-time as they passed by the Earth.

The observation of the gravitational waves produced by the collision of the two back holes is officially known as GW150914. Scientists said it marked a new era in the scientific exploration of the Universe and the laws of physics that control it.

"The observation of GW150914 marks three milestones for physics: the direct detection of gravitational waves, the first observation of a binary black hole, and the most convincing evidence to-date that nature's black holes are the objects predicted by Einstein's theory," said Professor Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy.

Ed Daw, a physicist at University of Sheffield, said: "A measure of its significance is that even the source of the wave, two black holes in close orbit, each tens of times heavier than the Sun which then collide violently, has never been observed before, and could not have been observed by any other method. This is just the beginning."

If the space-time continuum is like a taut trampoline, then massive objects are like heavy bowling bowls distorting the trampoline's fabric. When massive objects interact - such as colliding black holes - they send ripples known as gravitational waves travelling at the speed of light through spacetime.

These ripples were too weak and difficult to detect by the previous generation of laser instruments used by Ligo, but an upgrade completed last year made the Advanced Ligo several times more sensitive, enabling it to detect distortions or movements of just one thousandth of the diameter of a sub-atomic proton over a distance of 1 kilometre.

Britain and Germany both contributed key element to the upgrade, and Russian scientists provided critical input. Britain's Science and Technology Facilities Council built the sensitive technology of suspending the instrument's delicate mirrors while Germany provided state-of-the-art laser equipment.

Ligo's 4km-long laser beams has now detected the minute stretching and contraction caused by a passing gravitational wave. It was the definitive proof that the scientists had long been waiting for. They had directly witnessed gravitational waves for the first time, and precisely 100 years after Einstein's general theory had predicted them.

Both of Ligo's two observatories in Washington and Louisiana detected the same gravitational waves almost simultaneously - meaning the find has a statistically significant level of "sigma 5" - virtually ruling out a chance effect.

The discovery also confirms the general theory by direct observation, again for the first time since it was published in 1915.

Although astronomers had indirectly inferred the existence of gravitational waves in 1974 when they had observed the movements of two stars orbiting one another in a binary pulsar, the new announcement seals their existence - and the veracity of the general theory of relativity - with direct proof.

"Until you can actually measure something, you don't really know it's there," said Professor Jim Hough, associate director of the Institute of Gravitational Waves at Glasgow University, who has spent that past 45 years searching for ripples in spacetime.

"I think this is much more significant than the discovery of the Higgs boson. This is the biggest scientific breakthrough of this century."

Reuse content

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Scientists just announced the biggest discovery this century

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Gravitational ripples in the fabric of spacetime, first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago, have now been detected by scientists who believe the discovery opens new vistas into the "dark" side of the Universe. Physicists around the world confirmed they had detected unambiguous signals of gravitational waves emanating from the collision of two massive black holes 1.3 billion light years away in deep space.

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AMAZING PICTURE OF A BLACK HOLE ABSORBING LIGHT

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AMAZING PICTURE OF A BLACK HOLE ABSORBING LIGHT

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Tej S

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Anthony L

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Strange Universe of Gravitational Lensing

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LIGO's First Detection of Gravitational Waves! | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios

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The lasers have wiggled! Tweet at us! @pbsspacetime Facebook: facebook.com/pbsspacetime Email us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] com Comment on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pbsspacetime Today, over 100 years after Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity, we are proud to announce that his final major prediction has been verified! Gravitational waves have officially been detected by LIGO!

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

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After a decades-long quest, The MIT-Caltech collaboration LIGO Laboratories has detected gravitational waves, opening a new era in our exploration of the universe.

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#waves
#bigbang
#ripplesinspacetime
#discovered
#colliding

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Discover & Share this Space GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

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Gravitational waves: Einstein was right - and this announcement is the scientific highlight of the decade

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Physicists and astronomers are agog. On Thursday, experimenters will report the first detection of a phenomenon that has been long predicted: bursts of gravitational waves generated by cosmic collisions of black holes.

Sadly it is not unknown for hyped-up scientific claims to be mistaken or exaggerated - claims of particles going faster than light, gravitational waves from the big bang, and so forth. I count myself a hard-to-convince sceptic. But what is being claimed will be the culmination of literally decades of effort by scientists and engineers with high credentials, and this time I expect to be fully convinced.

"Unless the experimenters have had exceptional beginners' luck, it looks as though a new kind of astronomy has opened up."

This detection is indeed a big deal: one of the great discoveries of the decade - up there with the detection of the Higgs particle, which caused huge razzmatazz two years ago.

The Higgs particle was a capstone to the so-called standard model of particle physics, developed over several decades. Likewise, gravitational waves - vibrations in the fabric of space itself - are a crucial and distinctive consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Credit: NASA

In the LIGO detectors (the acronym stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) intense laser beams are projected along 4-kilometre long tubes, from which air has been evacuated.

By analysing the light reflected off mirrors at each end it's possible to detect tiny changes in the distance between the mirrors. When a gravitational wave passes, the distance between LIGO's mirrors alternately increases and decreases as "space" expands and contracts.

This is an immensely delicate experiment: the effect being sought is so tiny that it "shakes" the mirrors through a distance less than a millionth of the size of a single atom. This is why it's been crucial to have two similar detectors separated by nearly 2,000 miles - one in Washington State, the other in Louisiana - and to seek events that show up in both detectors, thereby ruling out effects caused by local seismic events, passing trucks, and so forth.

Peter Higgs predicted his particle 50 years ago, but its detection - and pinning down of its properties - had to await the march of technology. It required a huge machine, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

Gravitational waves were predicted even earlier, but detection has been delayed because the quest involves detecting a very elusive effect and again requires large-scale and expensive instruments - a challenge to the many hundreds of engineers and scientists involved in this international collaboration.
Read: Albert Einstein, he really was an egghead
Why is the effect so small and elusive? It's basically because gravity is such a weak force. We only feel its attraction because we are on planet Earth.

The gravitational pull between everyday objects is tiny. If you wave around two dumbbells you will emit gravitational waves - but with quite infinitesimal power. Even planets orbiting stars, or pairs of stars orbiting each other, don't emit at a detectable level.

Astronomers are agreed that the only sources that LIGO might detect must involve much stronger gravity than in ordinary stars and planets. Objects where gravity is strongest and fastest-changing are the most powerful emitters of gravitational waves. The best bet is that the events involve black holes.

We've known for about 40 years that black holes exist: most are the remnants of stars twenty or more times more massive than the sun. These stars burn brightly, and in their explosive death-throes (signalled by a supernova), their inner part collapses to a black hole.

The material that the star was made of gets cut off from the rest of the universe, leaving a gravitational imprint on the space it has left.

The violent birth of a black hole generates a pulse of gravitational waves. But an even stronger pulse comes if two holes subsequently coalesce.

This is a rare event, happening less than once in a million years in our Galaxy. But such an event would give a LIGO signal even if it happened a billion light-years away - and there are millions of galaxies closer than that.

For years, LIGO detected nothing. But it went through an upgrade, coming fully on line again a few months ago. Luckily, it has now proved sensitive enough to detect pulses of gravitational waves.

"Quite apart from offering a completely new vindication of Einstein's theory, these results will deepen our understanding of stars and galaxies."

Holes that find themselves in orbit around each other (perhaps because they are the remnant of a binary star) would gradually spiral together. As they get closer, the space around them gets more distorted and their orbital speed exceeds half the speed of light. They finally coalesce into a single, spinning, hole, which sloshes and vibrates, emitting further gravitational waves until it settles down as a single quiescent hole.

It is this "chirp" - a shaking of space that speeds up and strengthens until the merger, and then dies away - that LIGO can detect. It's possible to calculate the wave-form of this "chirp": it depends on how heavy the merging holes are, and how they are spinning, and how their orbit is oriented relative to the line of sight.

So data of sufficiently high quality can reveal details of what caused the events.

Credit: DANA BERRY/NASA

Quite apart from offering a completely new vindication of Einstein's theory, these results will deepen our understanding of stars and galaxies. Astronomical evidence on black holes and massive stars are limited - it was hard to predict how many would be within range.

Pessimists thought that the events might be so rare that even the new and improved LIGO wouldn't detect anything, at least for a year or two. But unless the experimenters have had exceptional "beginners' luck" it looks as though a new kind of astronomy has opened up, revealing the dynamics of space itself, rather than the material that pervades it.

Two European detectors are joining the search, and these discoveries will stimulate wider efforts to exploit this fundamentally new channel of information about cosmic phenomena.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gravitational waves: Einstein was right - and this announcement is the scientific highlight of the decade

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Physicists and astronomers are agog. On Thursday, experimenters will report the first detection of a phenomenon that has been long predicted: bursts of gravitational waves generated by cosmic collisions of black holes. Sadly it is not unknown for hyped-up scientific claims to be mistaken or exaggerated - claims of particles going faster than light, gravitational waves from the big bang, and so forth.

# data[].attributes.body
Anthony L

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After a decades-long quest, The MIT-Caltech collaboration LIGO Laboratories has detected gravitational waves, opening a new era in our exploration of the universe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Physicists and astronomers are agog. On Thursday, experimenters will report the first detection of a phenomenon that has been long predicted: bursts of gravitational waves generated by cosmic collisions of black holes.

Sadly it is not unknown for hyped-up scientific claims to be mistaken or exaggerated - claims of particles going faster than light, gravitational waves from the big bang, and so forth. I count myself a hard-to-convince sceptic. But what is being claimed will be the culmination of literally decades of effort by scientists and engineers with high credentials, and this time I expect to be fully convinced.

"Unless the experimenters have had exceptional beginners' luck, it looks as though a new kind of astronomy has opened up."

This detection is indeed a big deal: one of the great discoveries of the decade - up there with the detection of the Higgs particle, which caused huge razzmatazz two years ago.

The Higgs particle was a capstone to the so-called standard model of particle physics, developed over several decades. Likewise, gravitational waves - vibrations in the fabric of space itself - are a crucial and distinctive consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Credit: NASA

In the LIGO detectors (the acronym stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) intense laser beams are projected along 4-kilometre long tubes, from which air has been evacuated.

By analysing the light reflected off mirrors at each end it's possible to detect tiny changes in the distance between the mirrors. When a gravitational wave passes, the distance between LIGO's mirrors alternately increases and decreases as "space" expands and contracts.

This is an immensely delicate experiment: the effect being sought is so tiny that it "shakes" the mirrors through a distance less than a millionth of the size of a single atom. This is why it's been crucial to have two similar detectors separated by nearly 2,000 miles - one in Washington State, the other in Louisiana - and to seek events that show up in both detectors, thereby ruling out effects caused by local seismic events, passing trucks, and so forth.

Peter Higgs predicted his particle 50 years ago, but its detection - and pinning down of its properties - had to await the march of technology. It required a huge machine, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

Gravitational waves were predicted even earlier, but detection has been delayed because the quest involves detecting a very elusive effect and again requires large-scale and expensive instruments - a challenge to the many hundreds of engineers and scientists involved in this international collaboration.
Read: Albert Einstein, he really was an egghead
Why is the effect so small and elusive? It's basically because gravity is such a weak force. We only feel its attraction because we are on planet Earth.

The gravitational pull between everyday objects is tiny. If you wave around two dumbbells you will emit gravitational waves - but with quite infinitesimal power. Even planets orbiting stars, or pairs of stars orbiting each other, don't emit at a detectable level.

Astronomers are agreed that the only sources that LIGO might detect must involve much stronger gravity than in ordinary stars and planets. Objects where gravity is strongest and fastest-changing are the most powerful emitters of gravitational waves. The best bet is that the events involve black holes.

We've known for about 40 years that black holes exist: most are the remnants of stars twenty or more times more massive than the sun. These stars burn brightly, and in their explosive death-throes (signalled by a supernova), their inner part collapses to a black hole.

The material that the star was made of gets cut off from the rest of the universe, leaving a gravitational imprint on the space it has left.

The violent birth of a black hole generates a pulse of gravitational waves. But an even stronger pulse comes if two holes subsequently coalesce.

This is a rare event, happening less than once in a million years in our Galaxy. But such an event would give a LIGO signal even if it happened a billion light-years away - and there are millions of galaxies closer than that.

For years, LIGO detected nothing. But it went through an upgrade, coming fully on line again a few months ago. Luckily, it has now proved sensitive enough to detect pulses of gravitational waves.

"Quite apart from offering a completely new vindication of Einstein's theory, these results will deepen our understanding of stars and galaxies."

Holes that find themselves in orbit around each other (perhaps because they are the remnant of a binary star) would gradually spiral together. As they get closer, the space around them gets more distorted and their orbital speed exceeds half the speed of light. They finally coalesce into a single, spinning, hole, which sloshes and vibrates, emitting further gravitational waves until it settles down as a single quiescent hole.

It is this "chirp" - a shaking of space that speeds up and strengthens until the merger, and then dies away - that LIGO can detect. It's possible to calculate the wave-form of this "chirp": it depends on how heavy the merging holes are, and how they are spinning, and how their orbit is oriented relative to the line of sight.

So data of sufficiently high quality can reveal details of what caused the events.

Credit: DANA BERRY/NASA

Quite apart from offering a completely new vindication of Einstein's theory, these results will deepen our understanding of stars and galaxies. Astronomical evidence on black holes and massive stars are limited - it was hard to predict how many would be within range.

Pessimists thought that the events might be so rare that even the new and improved LIGO wouldn't detect anything, at least for a year or two. But unless the experimenters have had exceptional "beginners' luck" it looks as though a new kind of astronomy has opened up, revealing the dynamics of space itself, rather than the material that pervades it.

Two European detectors are joining the search, and these discoveries will stimulate wider efforts to exploit this fundamentally new channel of information about cosmic phenomena.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gravitational waves: Einstein was right - and this announcement is the scientific highlight of the decade

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Physicists and astronomers are agog. On Thursday, experimenters will report the first detection of a phenomenon that has been long predicted: bursts of gravitational waves generated by cosmic collisions of black holes. Sadly it is not unknown for hyped-up scientific claims to be mistaken or exaggerated - claims of particles going faster than light, gravitational waves from the big bang, and so forth.

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Tej S

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
NASA Admits Hidden Portals Opening Above Earth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Major News! Sound Of Two BLACK HOLES Colliding Recorded By Scientists!

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/02/11/cosmic-breakthrough-physicists-detect-gravitational-waves-from-violent-black-hole-merger/ Secureteam10 is your source for the best in new UFO sighting videos, information on the government coverup and alien activity caught on tape. Send us YOUR footage by visiting the contact links below, and help us continue the good fight for disclosure!

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#LISA
#GravityWontStopAmazingUs
#BigBangTheoryConfirmed? (Note: not show)
#CosmicBackground
#LIGO
#BiggerBlackHoles

# data[].attributes.body
#1916
#generalreletivity
#spacetime
#Backintime
#inflation
#gravityhasastorytotell

# data[].attributes.body
#CorrectTheory
#WavesOfGravity
#LIGOFoundOutHow
#StephenHawking
#BlackHoleCollision
#ConfirmedTheory
#NeutronStarCollisonsLeadtoBlackHoleCollisonsLeadingto
GRAVITATIONALWAVES

# data[].attributes.body
#NewWindow
#SpaceTime
#100yearsAgo
#Waves
#Space
#Breakthrough

# data[].attributes.body
#ripple
#spiral
#discovery
#cosmos
#spacetime
#breakthrough
#matter
#gravitationalwaves

# data[].attributes.body
#GravitationalWaves
#BlackHoles
#TheoryofRelativity
#InvisibleRipples
#AcceleratingMasses

# data[].attributes.body
#CorrectPrediction

# data[].attributes.body
#spacetime
#waves
#binarystars
#gravity
#neutronstars

# data[].attributes.body
#GravityFalls

#ANewBeginning

#RipplingDignity

#GoingBackInTime

#WalkingInTheSpeedofLight

#RipplesofGLORY
http://news.discovery.com/space/dark-cosmic-signal-spacetime-chirp-of-black-hole-rebirth-160211.htm

# data[].attributes.body
#1916
#generalrelativity
#spacetime
#LIGO&LISA
#inflation

# data[].attributes.body
1. #Supernova

2. #Theorem

3. #cosmetology

4. @Galactic Waves

5. @Lab

6. @Galaxy

7. #DidYouKnow

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Have Gravitational Waves Been Discovered?!? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Has the last great prediction of Einstein's general relativity finally been verified? Tweet at us! @pbsspacetime Facebook: facebook.com/pbsspacetime Email us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] com Comment on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pbsspacetime For the past 90 years, the predictions laid out Einstein's general theory of relativity have continued to be confirmed by experimental science.

# data[].attributes.body
#StephenHawking
#GeneralReletivity
#Radiation
#QuantumTheory
#SpaceTime
#BinaryBlackHoles

# data[].attributes.body
#1916
#spacetime
#1.3billionlightyears
#hawking
#ripples
#merging
#discovery
#astrophysics
#proof
#theory
#currentevents
#physics
#matter
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw

# data[].attributes.body
#butterflyeffect
#space
#rip
#IssacNewton
#prediction
#catastrophic
#theory
#Stars
#interofermetre
#proof
#telescope
#collision

# data[].attributes.body
#SuperSmall
#Superbigblackhole
#VeryFAR
#Correct
#TimeTravel
#Wecantgotothefuture
#Ripples
#HappenedOneBillionYearsBefore
#2015-onebillionyears
#OneMillionOfaMillimeter
#Awesome
#Quasar

# data[].attributes.body
#theory of relativity

#TimeandSpace

#time-slows
#Distortion
#Light Speed
#twin Laser-Interferometer Gravitational-wave-Observatory
#Lasers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LIGO detects gravitational waves -- announcement at press conference  (part 1)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Press conference announcing the first direct detection of gravitational waves -- February 11, 2016

# data[].attributes.body
#surf'sUP
#doubleBLACKOLES
#LIGOfindsripples
#spacetimeWHAT?
#blackholeMERRYgoROUND
#spacetimeRIPPLE
#2blackholes=1mega

# data[].attributes.body
#LaserInterferometerGravitational-waveObservatory
#Astronomy
#electromagneticspectrum
#StephenHawking
#ModernTech
So What Happens Now?

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-now-that-we-know-gravitational-waves-are-real/

# data[].attributes.body
#universe
#instrument
#confirmation
#vibration
#merge
#detector
#invisible
#lightyears
#theory

#ripple
#technology
#supernova
#laser

# data[].attributes.body
#space
#gravitationalradiation
#waves
#emerge
#mysterysolved

# data[].attributes.body
#ANewDiscovery
#SpaceTime
#ConfirmingTheories
#TheoryOfRelativity
#BlackHolesColliding

# data[].attributes.body
#GravityWavesthroughspace time
#MASSIVEQUAZAR
#Stillheard
#changingastronomy
#Ripplingthroughspace
#LightDistortion
#giantexplosion

# data[].attributes.body
#cosmicinflation
#LIGO
#PeterHiggs
#spacetime
#polarisation
#orbit
#binary
#physicsredefined
#merge
#wholenewstart
#1.3billion
#speedoflight
#lightyears
#supermassive
#quantamphysics
#generalrelativety
#possibilities
#detector
#nolight
#lasertechnology
#100years
#proof
#HawkingAgrees
#supersensitive
#theuniverseisamazing
#newdiscoveries
#collide
#quasar
#invisible
#BOOM

# data[].attributes.body
#DisruptionInSpacetimeContinuum
#BrightQuasi-StellarObject
#PreciseQuasarLight
#sinewave
#NoLongerATheory

# data[].attributes.body
#Secondsense
#GravitationalWaves
#IWonderWhatWeWouldHaveDiscoveredIfEinstienWasStillAlive
#TimeAndSpace
#AnotherWayOfLookingAtSpace

# data[].attributes.body
#MergingBlackHoles
#SuperPowerfulBlackHole
#Theory
#HappenedLongTimeAgo
#NewDiscoveriesAreGonnaHappen
#Higgs
#TravellingBackInTime

# data[].attributes.body
#massivecollision
#blackholescolliding
#theoryconfirmed
#PeterHiggs
#cosmicblast
#ripplesinspacetime
#1.3billionlightyearsaway
#blackholesbiggerthanthesun

# data[].attributes.body
Two spinning black holes
Mr. Jansma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This illustration depicts the gravitational waves generated by two black holes orbiting each other.

Credit: NASA

Gravitational waves, invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time, might be detected by looking for the brightening of stars, researchers say.

These mysterious ripples were first proposed by Albert Einstein as part of his theory of general relativity. The waves' size depends on the mass of the objects creating them.

"Gravitational waves are emitted by accelerating masses," said lead study author Barry McKernan, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Really big waves are emitted by really big masses, such as systems containing black holes merging with each other. [ See images of gravitational waves]

Scientists have still not made direct observations of gravitational waves, although researchers continue to endeavor to detect them using experiments involving lasers on the ground and in space. The waves interact very weakly with matter, which partly explains why seeing these ripples in spacetime is difficult.

Now, McKernan and his colleagues suggest that gravitational waves could have more of an effect on matter than previously thought, with their influence potentially brightening stars.

"It's neat that nearly 100 years after Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity, there are still interesting surprises it can turn up," McKernan told Space.com. "We're brought up as astronomers thinking the interaction between matter and gravitational waves is very weak, essentially negligible, and that turns out not to be true."

The researchers suggest that stars that vibrate at the same frequency as gravitational waves passing through them can absorb a large amount of energy from the ripples.

"You can imagine gravitational waves as sounds from a piano, and stars as a vibrating violin string held near that piano," McKernan said. "If the frequency of the sounds matches the frequency of the violin string, the string can resonate with the sound." If a star gets pumped up with large amounts of energy from gravitational waves in this way, "the star can puff up and look brighter than it normally would," McKernan said.

One challenge is determining whether any star brightening astronomers detect is from gravitational waves or some other factor. The researchers suggest the key to spotting the effects of gravitational waves involves looking at large groups of stars.

"When a population of stars is near a system of merging black holes and is getting pounded by gravitational waves, we think that the more massive stars will light up first," McKernan said. "It's like playing keys on a piano and starting with low pitches." As the black holes get closer together, the frequency of the gravitational waves they generate will increase, "and we'd expect to see brightening of smaller stars," he added. "If we see a population of stars where the smaller stars are brightening after the bigger stars in a collective way, that might be a sign of gravitational waves."

This research also suggests a different way to indirectly detect gravitational waves. If scientists develop working gravitational wave detectors on Earth or in space, when a star passes in front of powerful sources of gravitational waves such as merging black holes, the detector may see a drop in the intensity of those waves. This will happen if the eclipsing star is vibrating at the right frequency.

"You usually think of stars as being eclipsed by something, not the other way around," McKernan said in a statement.

McKernan and his colleagues Saavik Ford, Bence Kocsis and Zoltan Haiman detailed their findings online Sept. 22 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

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Einstein's Gravity Waves Could Be Found with New Method

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Gravitational waves, invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time, might be detected by looking for the brightening of stars, researchers say. These mysterious ripples were first proposed by Albert Einstein as part of his theory of general relativity. The waves' size depends on the mass of the objects creating them.