Breakthrough: Scientists detect Einstein-predicted ripples

Gravitational waves were discovered by physicist Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, 100 years ago.

“They are the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors ever built, and they have now for the first time done what they were built to do: there was a “disturbance in the gravitational force”, and the LIGO detectors have felt it!”

The smoking gun for gravity waves takes the form of a short, C-note chirp that was recorded by antennas in Washington State and Louisiana.

Researchers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced today that they have directly detected gravitational waves for the first time.

The noise was detected thanks to the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory, known as LIGO. The signals lead LIGO scientists to believe the holes were 29 and 36 times the mass of the sun. Each was perhaps 50 kilometers (30 miles) in diameter. However, if one of these arms is stretched or shrunk, say by a gravitational wave, the race will not be a tie; the beam traveling down the shorter arm will win the race and interfere with the beam traveling down the longer arm, creating a signal. Launching the equipment into space will allow scientists to get away from the noise and bustle of our planet, and could allow them to isolate the “sound” of the waves even more accurately.

“The observed event is not only the first direct detection of gravitational waves, confirming Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity”. “It was so strong and observed during such a short run that I expect LIGO to see tens and more likely hundreds of such events when it completes all of its science runs”. To date, we’ve been able only to see their aftereffects – black holes themselves remain a conjecture. The announcement confirmed rumors about the discovery that had been swirling for several weeks.

And it turns out gravity comes in waves, just as Einstein thought. He says LIGO laboratories in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana used instruments developed at UF to detect the discovery – two black holes in space colliding to create one massive black hole.

The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that for decades researchers have searched for the waves but have been unable to prove their existence.

“With this discovery, we humans are embarking on a marvelous new quest: the quest to explore the warped side of the universe”, said LIGO co-founder Kip Thorne.

“Not only will we be able to see the wave, we are going to hear it chirp”, she said at Thursday’s press conference.

Marka said to think of it as a “cosmic microphone”, an incredibly precise listening device that can detect distortions in space-time, the fabric of the universe.