Gravitational Waves Detected for the First Time

[trish]

Today (Feb 11, 2016) NSF announced that LIGO has detected gravitational waves. This is the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves in human history. These particular waves originate somewhere in the direction of the Magellanic Clouds and were caused by the collision of two black holes each having a mass about thirty times that of the Sun. Interestingly, these waves happen to be within the range of human hearing (but the length of the song is on the order of milliseconds; i.e. about the attention span of the average Trump voter).

The discovery confirms, in a new way, Einstein’s general theory of relativity and places a smaller experimental bound on the possible mass of the graviton (which current theory says is zero).

Besides black holes, LIGO and similar observatories will be used to study binary neutron systems, spinning neutron stars, supernova and perhaps even cosmic strings.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...d_at_ligo.html


http://nyti.ms/23YoyKG

[sukumvit boy]

Oops , I started a "gravitational waves " thread in the General Discussion forum , sorry . This one is better.
We've got optical and radio wave telescopes , maybe now , with a gravity telescope , we can figure out what the 70 percent of the universe that we can't see is all about.

[trish]

We knew for nearly a century that the universe was splashing around in space and time, having fun and sending waves of it to every corner of the pool. But out by us those waves are so weak they’re nearly undetectable. Their detection, last week, is a new confirmation of Einstein’s General Theory, adds new constraints to how other theories can diverge from it and (as Sukumvit Boy alludes) opens up a whole new field of observation.

Conventional observatories (radio, X-ray and optical telescopes) exploit various bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. They allow us to “see” objects that perturb the electromagnetic field (typically by emitting, or reflecting electromagnetic radiation). LIGO will allow us to “see” or “hear” objects that perturb the curvature of space and time. Dark matter which doesn’t emit or reflected electromagnetic radiation and which pretty much only interacts with other matter gravitationally may finally become “visible.” The formation and interaction of ancient and bizarre objects such as domain walls and cosmic strings (if they exist) may become “visible”. Certainly, we’ll be able to see black holes and neutron stars in a new way.

[martin48]

Clearly, not making much of a wave on this website

Perhaps it is all in Genesis anyway. Was it just an early morning fart from God before he got going for the next 6 days?

[trish]

Some newly detected waves and how they were made ->

[martin48]

So gravitational waves are the sound of two black holes colliding.

Picture shows two assholes colliding

[trish]

They're easily distinguished by their audio-signatures.

Two black holes colliding: chirrrrup!
Two assholes colliding: blup-blup-puh-puh-puh-phffffffffffffffffff