LIGO tagged posts

LISA will be a remarkable gravitational-wave observatory, but there’s a way to make it 100 times more powerful

LISA will be a remarkable gravitational-wave observatory—but there's a way to make it 100 times more powerful

The first-time detection of Gravitational Waves (GW) by researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015 triggered a revolution in astronomy. This phenomenon consists of ripples in spacetime caused by the merger of massive objects and was predicted a century prior by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. In the coming years, this burgeoning field will advance considerably thanks to the introduction of next-generation observatories, like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA).

With greater sensitivity, astronomers will be able to trace GW events back to their source and use them to probe the interiors of exotic objects and the laws of physics...

Read More

Black Hole Billiards in the Centers of Galaxies

Illustration of a swarm of smaller black holes in a gas disk rotating around a giant black hole . Interactions between three black holes, such as those shown in the foreground, occur relatively often and will with high probability result in a merger on a non-circular orbit (credit: J. Samsing/Niels Bohr Institute)

Researchers provide the first plausible explanation to why one of the most massive black hole pairs observed to date by gravitational waves also seemed to merge on a non-circular orbit. Their suggested solution, now published in Nature, involves a chaotic triple drama inside a giant disk of gas around a super massive black hole in a galaxy far, far away.

Black holes are one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe, but our knowledge of them is still limited — especi...

Read More

Scientists detect a ‘Tsunami’ of Gravitational Waves

2 black holes merge to become one. Image: NASA

A team of international scientists, including researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), have unveiled the largest number of gravitational waves ever detected.

The discoveries will help solve some of the most complex mysteries of the Universe, including the building blocks of matter and the workings of space and time.

The global team’s study, published on ArXiv, made 35 new detections of gravitational waves caused by pairs of black holes merging or neutron stars and black holes smashing together, using the LIGO and Virgo observatories between November 2019 and March 2020.

This brings the total number of detections to 90 after three observing runs between 2015 and 2020.

The new detections are from massive cosmic ...

Read More

‘Galaxy-sized’ Observatory sees potential hints of Gravitational Waves

Graphic showing pulsar light traveling to Earth amid a sea of gravitational waves. (Credit: NANOGrav/T. Klein)

Scientists have used a “galaxy-sized” space observatory to find possible hints of a unique signal from gravitational waves, or the powerful ripples that course through the universe and warp the fabric of space and time itself.

The new findings, which appeared recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, hail from a U.S. and Canadian project called the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav).

For over 13 years, NANOGrav researchers have pored over the light streaming from dozens of pulsars spread throughout the Milky Way Galaxy to try to detect a “gravitational wave background...

Read More