Just what are Einstein’s gravitational waves?

Gravitational waves – tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time first proposed by Albert Einstein a century ago – have been directly observed for the first time, a team of scientists announced this morning. Scientists finally detected those waves at a pair of ground-based observatories in Washington state and Louisiana.

According to UA Professor, Feryal Ozel, for the first time, scientists have discovered that space has a soundtrack.

These researchers have picked up and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light years away.

This file photo taken on March 13, 2012 shows an artist’s concept of a quasar, or feeding black hole.

“So these gravitational waves were produced by two colliding black holes that came together, merged to form a single black hole about 1.3 billion years ago”.

Fred Raab knew back in the ’80s that he had to decide: look for these gravitational waves, or do something else with his life?

“We’re going to start exploring the universe through this new window of gravitational waves, learning more about black holes but also about neutron stars”, Kalogera said.

“It’s really comparable only to Galileo taking up the telescope and looking at the planets”, said Pennsylvania State physics theorist, Abhay Ashtekar, who was not part of the discovery team. The waves were detected on 14th September 2015.

Because the waves are largely unimpeded by matter, the scientists said, they offer a new way for astronomers to probe hidden recesses of the universe.

“The light from the laser has to travel in a vacuum so that it is not disturbed by all the air fluctuations”, said Shoemaker, noting that LIGO contains the “biggest high vacuum system in the world”, -measuring 1.2 meters (yards) by 2.5 miles (four kilometers) long.

IN THEORY, UNTIL NOW: Gravitational waves were first predicted in 1916 by Einstein.

Dr Danny Steeghs, from the University of Warwick, said: “This is a fantastic technical achievement by the LIGO team, a highly deserved reward after many years of effort and technology development”.

“So we will be following up on events and identifying where they are coming from and what galaxy created them”, Kaaret said.

But scientists have been able to find only indirect evidence of their existence. This distortion is similar to how gravitational waves work. Gravitational waves would be like ripples that emanate from a pebble thrown in a pond.

These waves are emitted by any mass that is changing speed or direction.