Gravitational Waves Detected for the First Time!

[YosemiteSam]

Booyah!

In Historic First, Einstein's Gravitational Waves Detected Directly

This is an example of what happen, but this shows two white dwarf stars merging. The event that actually occurred was two relatively small black holes merging.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Another cool video

 

[YosemiteSam]

LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves from Merging Black Holes
Illustration Credit: LIGO, NSF, Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State U.)

Explanation: Gravitational radiation has been directly detected. The first-ever detection was made by both facilities of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Washington and Louisiana simultaneously last September. After numerous consistency checks, the resulting 5-sigma discovery was published today. The measured gravitational waves match those expected from two large black holes merging after a death spiral in a distant galaxy, with the resulting new black hole momentarily vibrating in a rapid ringdown. A phenomenon predicted by Einstein, the historic discovery confirms a cornerstone of humanity's understanding of gravity and basic physics. It is also the most direct detection of black holes ever. The featured illustration depicts the two merging black holes with the signal strength of the two detectors over 0.3 seconds superimposed across the bottom. Expected future detections by Advanced LIGO and other gravitational wave detectors may not only confirm the spectacular nature of this measurement but hold tremendous promise of giving humanity a new way to see and explore our universe.

 

[Idgit]

I thought this was going to be a thread about that time your mom sat on my waterbed.

 

[YosemiteSam]

 

[dreghorn2]

The human mind is an absolutely incredible thing.

A former patent clerk born in the 19th century postulated their existence almost a century ago. Amazing.

 

[Tabascocat]

It is amazing that we have something that can detect this which happened over 1 billion light years away!

 

[YosemiteSam]

What's really crazy is the confirmation of this with help confine research going forward which will speed up innovation and most likely deep space travel in the future.

 

[YosemiteSam]

The human mind is an absolutely incredible thing.

A former patent clerk born in the 19th century postulated their existence almost a century ago. Amazing.

He figured it out basically when the horse and buggy were still prominent forms of transportation. That is just plain nuts. It took all this time just to prove he was right because we didn't have the technology to do that. He did that without anywhere close to the technology we have today.

 

[YosemiteSam]

A post by John Baez ~ Mathematical physicist at U.C. Riverside

Graviational waves

The rumors are true: LIGO has seen gravitational waves! Based on the details of the signal detected, the LIGO team estimates that 1.3 billion years ago. two black holes spiralled into each other and collided. One was 29 times the mass of the Sun, the other 36 times. When they merged, 3 times the mass of the Sun was converted directly to energy and released as gravitational waves.

For a very short time, this event produced over 10 times more power than all the stars in the Universe!

We knew these things happened. We just weren't good enough at detecting gravitational waves to see them - until now.​

 

[Longboysfan]

Interesting if you could harness or link into them somehow.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Interesting if you could harness or link into them somehow.

Ha! You mean like this?

https://ci6.***BROKEN***/proxy/qDDutoNKIoj2AouUkHFUSjiwk8eReGdotFBab-_PKwSzbuSLO63hVN1bhuGL0rSnTh7t315-ydiy7XBQ2x2v64AiJFGZ-i0bpw=s0-d-e1-ft#http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/gravitational_waves.png

Gotta love xkcd!

 

[Longboysfan]

Ha! You mean like this?

https://ci6.***BROKEN***/proxy/qDDutoNKIoj2AouUkHFUSjiwk8eReGdotFBab-_PKwSzbuSLO63hVN1bhuGL0rSnTh7t315-ydiy7XBQ2x2v64AiJFGZ-i0bpw=s0-d-e1-ft#http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/gravitational_waves.png

Gotta love xkcd!

 

[PJTHEDOORS]

What's really crazy is the confirmation of this with help confine research going forward which will speed up innovation and most likely deep space travel in the future.

Have that already with the secret space program.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Have that already with the secret space program.

That's what the Martians tell me.

 

[DogFace]

Booyah!

In Historic First, Einstein's Gravitational Waves Detected Directly

This is an example of what happen, but this shows two white dwarf stars merging. The event that actually occurred was two relatively small black holes merging.

Ok, I'm going to try to ask this complex question the best I can so you could possibly explain it better than I heard so I could grasp and understand it better.

On one of The Universe episodes, I think, they were talking about how gravity isn't a force pulling down. Instead it's the act of the curvature of space pushing in. Now I think I understand it after thinking about how to ask the question, a little. I guess my question is why have we been always told it's a force pulling down. Or is it possible I totally missed what they were saying and misinterpreted. And any expansion on the idea of gravity pushing in would be appreciated.

The pictures you post are excellent and I really appreciate looking at them. Great work.

 

[DFWJC]

These are exciting times in the world of Astrophysics!

I think eventually, we will prove that time as measured now is not at all the same as time measured a billion years ago....or so to speak. Something that seems likes hundreds or thousands of years now happened--relatively speaking--in seconds millions of years ago.

Maybe

 

[YosemiteSam]

Ok, I'm going to try to ask this complex question the best I can so you could possibly explain it better than I heard so I could grasp and understand it better.

On one of The Universe episodes, I think, they were talking about how gravity isn't a force pulling down. Instead it's the act of the curvature of space pushing in. Now I think I understand it after thinking about how to ask the question, a little. I guess my question is why have we been always told it's a force pulling down. Or is it possible I totally missed what they were saying and misinterpreted. And any expansion on the idea of gravity pushing in would be appreciated.

The pictures you post are excellent and I really appreciate looking at them. Great work.

The general reason it's thought of as a force pulling down is the fact of Newton's Law of Gravity suggests it is. While Newton's idea has been proven false, the calculated effects are very close to the real thing so many scientist still use his laws as reference as they are very easy to understand and the observed affects are very real.

Space-Time is in some ideas is basically like a membrane and gravity is the affect that energy and mass have on that membrane through vibrations of incredibly small vibrating strings. (a product of M-Theory which came from String-Theory) In truth, gravity is still considered a force just like the rest of the fundamental forces. (weak, strong, electromagnetic, and of course gravity)

Basically, the mass and energy create a stretching (curvature) of the space-time membrane. This stretching is what causes other nearby mass to basically fall into the "gravity well" created by the curvature of the space-time membrane. The more mass / energy, the bigger the gravity well created. Hence, we (as people) stick to the Earth rather than floating away in space and the Earth orbits an even bigger mass. (the Sun) Our solar system orbits the super massive black hole that makes our galaxy (The Milky Way) exist rather than just flying apart at the seams.

I'm still at work, hopefully I explained that without screwing it up. Read some of the links, they can probably do a better job of explaining it than I can right now.

 

[PJTHEDOORS]

That's what the Martians tell me.

That's what our black budget and Area 51 base tells me too.

 

[LittleBoyBlue]

Black lives matter.