Gravitational wave detectors have opened a new window to the universe by measuring the ripples in spacetime produced by colliding black holes and neutron stars, but they are ultimately limited by quantum fluctuations induced by light reflecting off of mirrors. LSU Ph.D. physics alumnus Jonathan Cripe and his team of LSU researchers have conducted a new experiment with scientists from Caltech…
Tag: gravitational wave detectors
Gravitational wave detectors have found their biggest black hole yet
Gravitational wave observatories LIGO and Virgo have spotted their biggest black hole yet at 142 times the mass of the sun, the first hard proof that black holes this size exist Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253391-gravitational-wave-detectors-have-found-their-biggest-black-hole-yet/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
For the 1st time, a visible light explosion from a black hole merger
In recent years, black hole mergers in our universe have been detected via ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves. Now, for the first time, astronomers believe they’ve observed visible light from a black hole merger, in a peculiar 3-black-hole system. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/1st-time-visible-light-explosion-black-hole-merger…
Gravitational Waves Reveal Lightest Black Hole Ever Observed
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Gravitational wave detectors have spotted a cosmic collision in which a giant black hole swallowed up a mystery object seemingly too heavy to be a neutron star, but too light to be a black hole. Weighing in at 2.6 times the mass of the Sun, the object falls into a hypothetical “mass gap,” a…
Dance of 3 stars confirms Einstein’s ‘most fortunate thought’
Researchers in Europe have now confirmed the universality of free fall – which Einstein called his most fortunate thought – with extremely high precision. To do it, they spent 8 years tracking a triple star system containing a millisecond pulsar. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/pulsar-psr-j03371715-einstein-universality-of-free-fall…
Scientists reveal new insights of exploding massive stars and future gravitational wave detectors
In a study recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr. Jade Powell and Dr. Bernhard Mueller from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) simulated three core-collapse supernovae using supercomputers from across Australia, including the OzSTAR supercomputer at Swinburne University of Technology. The simulation models—which are 39 times, 20 times and 18 times…
What are gravitational waves?
First postulated by Albert Einstein in 1916 but not observed directly until September 2015, gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/definition-what-are-gravitational-waves…
Photons could reveal ‘massive gravity,’ new theory suggests
This is a radical new design compared to the world’s most sensitive gravitational wave detectors. Source: https://www.livescience.com/graviton-photon-interaction-hunting-machine.html
Did this huge black hole swallow a star from the inside out?
A recently discovered black hole in a distant spiral arm of the Milky Way, 70 times as heavy as the sun, might have swallowed a star from the inside out, and scientists are baffled. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/did-huge-black-hole-lb1-swallow-star-from-inside-out…
New study proposes light signature for detecting black hole mergers
Gravitational wave detectors are finding black hole mergers in the universe at the rate of one per week. If these mergers occur in empty space, researchers cannot see associated light that is needed to determine where they happened. However, a new study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the City University…