An all-star global team of astrophysicists used a newly upgraded and excruciatingly sensitive $1.1 billion instrument known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO [pictured above], to detect a gravitational wave from the distant crash of two black holes, one of the ways these ripples are created.
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“Our observation of gravitational waves accomplishes an ambitious goal set out over 5 decades ago to directly detect this elusive phenomenon and better understand the universe, and, fittingly, fulfills Einstein’s legacy on the 100th anniversary of his general theory of relativity”, David H. Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory said via Mirror. In the years since then the scientific community has consistently sought to “find” these gravitational waves but it would take a while before the technology needed to detect these waves could be developed.
But this wasn’t just some little “chirp”.
These particular black holes emitted about as much gravitational energy as three of our suns.
In addition to confirming a key claim of general relativity, LIGO’s readings provide the best evidence to date that black holes actually exist. The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionise astronomy. When massive but compact objects like black holes or neutron stars collide, they send gravity ripples across the universe.
“The discovery of gravitational waves is, I think, the most important breakthrough in modern science”, Szabolcs Marka told CNN in an interview Thursday. The distance between the mirrors should change by an infinitesimal amount when a gravitational wave passes by the detector, as Albert Einstein, the father of gravitational waves, had predicted.
The team, headed by Archana Pai, was involved in analysing the data from the gravitational wave detectors in the United States. Fans of the 2014 movie “Interstellar” know that gravitational anomalies and black holes were employed to enable exploration of the universe.
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Dr. Mavalvala, compared the discovery of the gravitational waves to the moment silent movies added sound.
