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11 FEBRUARY 2016 time 20:14
International News
We did it! Gravitational waves finally detected!
Gravitational waves detected 100 years after Einstein's prediction. LIGO experiment opens new window on the universe with the observation of gravitational waves from colliding black holes.
For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at Earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe.
This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein's 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.
The announcement today during a press conference by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory).
The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.
Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.
The discovery, accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, was made by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration using data from the two LIGO detectors.
Want to know more on gravitational waves? See this video
This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein's 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.
The announcement today during a press conference by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory).
The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.
Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.
The discovery, accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, was made by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration using data from the two LIGO detectors. The plots show signals of gravitational waves detected by the twin LIGO observatories. The signals came from two merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years away. The top two plots show data received at each detector, along with waveforms predicted by general relativity. The X-axis plots time, the Y-axis strain--the fractional amount by which distances are distorted. The LIGO data match the predictions very closely. The final plot compares data from both facilities, confirming the detection.
Credit: LIGO
Want to know more on gravitational waves? See this video
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