Thursday, February 11, 2016

Double Black Hole Hails Discovery of Gravity Waves

Summary: It's the announcement of a discovery you didn't know you were waiting for. The detection of gravitational waves. It sounds weird, of course, but Einstein was onto something big when he was working on his theory of general relativity. Similar to a ball warping the surface of a rubber sheet, or a kayak being thrown into the water, large objects in outer space warp the fabric of the four dimensional spacetime that we live in.

When this happens, gravitational waves ripple through space and expand or contract the space around them. These waves have been undetectable until now. It is thanks to the LIGO interferometer that we can detect these faint waves in the universe. These waves are understandably hard to detect, the measurements are on a scale less than a width of an atom. They were able to detect this thanks to a double black hole.

Quite deservedly, the scientists involved are quite proud of their work. As this is both the first detection of gravity waves and the first direct detection of a black hole in addition to being confirmation of general relativity, they are confident that there is a Nobel Prize in their future and I am inclined to agree.

Either way, it is an exciting breakthrough in astronomy and one that I am excited to have as I enter the field.


APS Article
BBC News
Nature
SciShow