Einstein Is Right Again: Scientists Detect Ripples In Gravity

“The LIGO announcement describes one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the past 50 years”. Early Thursday, the National Science Foundation revealed they finally recorded proof of a phenomena Einstein predicted 100 years ago in his theory of relativity. Check out our new stories about gravity waves, along with some of our older coverage.

The LIGO uses a setup with laser beams, light detectors and mirrors to detect the faint shortening or lengthening of long distances that occurs as gravitational waves ripple through the Earth. “My research interest since 1987 has been in the detection/observation of gravitational waves, their data analysis and the modelling of gravitational wave detectors”, Dhurandhar was quoted as saying.

More than a billion years ago – LIGO estimates about 1.3 billion – the two collided at half the speed of light.

The waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime, set off in the course of gravitational interactions. The phrase has been on everyone’s lips. “We’re getting a signal which arrives at Earth, and we can put it on a speaker, and we can hear these black holes go, ‘Whoop.’ There’s a very visceral connection to this observation”. Seems like that a century later, scientists have got their hands on something that will further their understanding of the origin of the universe and shed more light on the Big Bang. LIGO’s main goal was to directly observe gravitational waves of cosmic origin. Hearing the recording, because the evidence of gravitational waves is captured in audio form, the would mean that astronomers are now able to hear the official soundtrack of the universe.

The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.

“Up until now we have been deaf to the universe”.

It also opens a new window for astronomy and astrophysics. “This is just the beginning, the first of many to come”, said Gabriela Gonzalez, the spokeswoman for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. They pick up passing gravitational waves by measuring how space-time stretches and contracts – by as little as one ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton.