LIGO Makes an Out of This World Discovery, Proving Einstein Correct

Scientists have described gravitational waves as “the ripples in fabric of space-time”.

In the words of LIGO’s executive director, David Reitze, “We did it!”

Three such interferometers have been built for LlGO – two near Richland, Washington state, and the other near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 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.

“We’re actually hearing them go thump in the night”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Matthew Evans said.

The waves are created by cataclysmic events, like the collision of black holes or exploding stars, in the distant universe.

The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015, at 5:51 a.m. EDT (0951 GMT) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana; and Hanford, Washington. “We have turned on a new sense”. “It’s like being able to see a new kind of light”. But until now scientists had found only indirect evidence of their existence. Scientists announced the first detection of gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves are the “soundtrack of the universe,” said team member Chad Hanna of Pennsylvania State University.

Wave after wave of them.

At Panjab University, professors and research scholars believe that the discovery is a new beginning in astronomy and gravitational studies.

His team has plenty of discoveries ahead on black holes and dying stars.

Now the question is – why scientists and physicists are so excited about this discovery?

Indeed, black holes are a holy grail of the gravitational wave concept. Scientists predict that the discovery could open a new window to unravel hidden secrets of the universe. When two massive space objects, like black holes, swirls around each other, said Daniel Batcheldor of the Physics and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.

The dense objects whipped up to almost half the speed of light before colliding and merging, sending out a stupendous release of gravitational wave energy that eventually reached the Earth, 1.2 billion light years away.

The LIGO observatories are funded by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the USA government.