Now we’ll listen to the stars, courtesy gravitational waves

For the first time scientists have directly detected gravitational waves, and have first observed ripples in the fabric of space-time forseen by Einstein a century ago. According to general relativity, a pair of black holes orbiting around each other lose energy through the emission of gravitational waves, causing them to gradually approach each other over billions of years, and then much more quickly in the final minutes.

That is one f***ing powerful soundscape.

He said the discovery will have a profound impact on how we understand our universe. The gravitational waves were discovered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, which has detectors in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington.

The global science community is eagerly waiting for the imminent event that is widely expected to confirm that the existence of elusive gravitational waves – small ripples in space and time that dash across the entire universe at the speed of light. “Up until now, we’ve been deaf”. “This detection means that the stars are no longer silent”. The project was supported by significant human and financial capital, as over 1,000 scientists from 15 different nations worked together and over $1 billion was spent to create LIGO.

It’s being called one of the most significant scientific discoveries from the past 50 years, and several Albertans had a hand in it. But, if a gravitational wave happens to pass through at the same time, then it will distort spacetime, essentially stretching or compressing the length of one of the tunnels and changing the distance that one of the beams of light has to travel. Hawking also described some of the research opportunities LIGO presents. Many have touted the team for a Nobel Prize.

Professor Stephen Hawking, an expert on Black Holes told the BBC, “Gravitational waves provide a completely new way at looking at the Universe”. LIGO is jointly operated by Caltech and MIT.