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For second time, scientists detect gravitational waves
- Thread starter Phantast2k
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super-famicom
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The collision occurred 1.4 billion years ago and its effects just reached us. Incredible.
Basically that time sped up/slowed down for a very brief moment. It's not noticeable to us because space-time is "constant" to the local observer, at least outside extreme sources of gravity such as a black hole.
backflip10019
Member
But what does this mean? Why is this significant?
We don't really know, other than it serves as proof that gravitational waves exist.
It's just gravity waves. Essentially, any object with mass has gravity, and gravity, no matter how small an amount, actually affects the entirety of the universe. As in, the gravity your body alone is "producing" is affecting planets lightyears away. Thanks to the inverse square law though, the effect is so incredibly small it's virtually impossible to detect. EDIT: And it's limited to the speed of light, hence it traveling like a wave.
This system uses very precisely tuned instruments to actually detect the ridiculously small changes in gravity that are affecting the earth, and using multiple points of detection we can triangulate the position of these objects and estimate their makeup based upon the strength of the changes.
Looks mildly erotic.
timetokill
Banned
I keep reminding myself I need to get the Interstellar science book. I love this shit, and I love that Nolan made a movie based on those concepts.
The effect is so small that two black holes 60 time the mass of the sun only squeeze/ripple space by a tiny fraction of the width of a proton. But if you were right next to them you're probably having a very bad day.
The cool thing is all telescopes currently use photon detection and photons are scatted by certain things, the biggest being the CMB left over from the big bang.
Gravity waves are not.
Like seismic waves, they travel though everything, so eventually we can use them to see places in the universe that we could not with radio-telescopes. Like inside stars, past the CMB/big bang, and through opaque matter.
Any Questions
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Great nugget of news.
Also... didn't this happen when Sauron died for the first time
These sorts of findings are significant because they provide additional evidence towards stuff that we have theorized in the past (In this case, Einstein's theory of general relativity).
Edit: For anyone that might want more information regarding the importance of this discovery. The video below gives you some more insight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIgZG7A1fqc
The effect is so small that two black holes 60 time the mass of the sun only squeeze/ripple space by a tiny fraction of the width of a proton. But if you were right next to them you're probably having a very bad day.
The cool thing is all telescopes currently use photon detection and photons are scatted by certain things, the biggest being the CMB left over from the big bang.
Gravity waves are not.
Like seismic waves, they travel though everything, so eventually we can use them to see places in the universe that we could not with radio-telescopes. Like inside stars, past the CMB/big bang, and through opaque matter.
What happens to matter that is squashed and squished by gravitational waves? Does its atoms retain the distance from one another?
It would change. Effects are so tiny they don't effect us in any way though.
Spacetime itself is squished and stretched. Matter is imbedded in spacetime.
The closes analogy is drawing something on a balloon and then squishing the ballon horizontally and then vertically. Watch the face get distorted and then return to normal. That's matter when a gravitational wave goes through.
A other cool thing because Einstein was right (per this discovery) is wave your hand. Since your hand is matter in motion, congrats you just created a gravity wave and moved the walls in the room (however infinitesimally small). If your hands were trillion of times the mass of a black hole you'd make the wall ripple like a stone thrown into a pond.
Also by the way, the reason it's all about black holes merging is because they create the biggest/"loudest" waves that stick out amongst all the noise. Everything generates gravity waves (as the above poster points out), we need bigger detectors to detect waves from smaller mass objects and events. Also once more detectors come online, we can even detect the exact direction they come from by calculating the time it took for the wave to hit each detector and triangulating.
It would change. Effects are so tiny they don't effect us in any way though.
Spacetime itself is squished and stretched. Matter is imbedded in spacetime.
The closes analogy is drawing something on a balloon and then squishing the ballon horizontally and then vertically. Watch the face get distorted and then return to normal. That's matter when a gravitational wave goes through.
A other cool thing because Einstein was right (per this discovery) is wave your hand. Since your hand is matter in motion, congrats you just created a gravity wave and moved the walls in the room (however infinitesimally small). If your hands were trillion of times the mass of a black hole you'd make the wall ripple like a stone thrown into a pond.
Thanks for the response. So is Spacetime a medium then.. the inbetween..?
Second question. I thought black holes had insane mass because of all the matter/light/time? Compressed to a single point. What bodies or energy expulsion would have a larger mass than a black hole..?
edit: I don't know why I waved my hand.
Hopefully this pushes congress to fund LISA. A billion wide mile gravity wave telescope in space is exciting.
CW's viral marketing for Flashpoint paradox on The Flash.
LookAtMeGo
Member
Now just learn how to manipulate that fabric so we can start riding those waves to other star systems.
Being compressed to a single point means the density is insanely high ("infinitely high", in classical physics), but in and of itself that doesn't mean it's got lots of mass. A black hole made out of 5kg of mass would be a 5kg black hole.
However, when we talk about black holes in astrophysics, we're often talking about objects that formed from the collapse of stars and such, which obviously tend to have a lot of mass.
Million mile wide, not billion.
Regardless, between the size and the "being in space" thing, it could potentially be waaaaaaay more capable than LIGO.
the thing that always blows my mind is how they know things like the masses of the black holes or at what speed they were rotating.
we know that two black holes collided and merged 1.4 billions years ago.
I am sorry, dogs, cats and dolphins, but I am gonna brag: we as species are pretty damn intelligent.
we know that two black holes collided and merged 1.4 billions years ago.
I am sorry, dogs, cats and dolphins, but I am gonna brag: we as species are pretty damn intelligent.
Spacetime is the geometry of our universe. We don't perceive it because we can only see euclidian (3-D) geometry. Spacetime is the 3 dimensions of space, plus the dimension of time as a whole. To understand this requires understanding Riemannian Geometry, which deals with curved surfaces. It is extremely complicated to say the least.
Black holes come in different masses from a few dozen solar masses, to rediculous amounts for the black holes found in the center of galaxies. The poster was saying that you could move the wall just by the energy of the gravitational waves if you had a mass heavier than the average black hole.
As for the single point, or singularly, it should not exist by the current laws of physics. How the singularity does exists, or what exists if it does not, is one of the great mysteries of modern physics.
Very interesting stuff...always fascinating. Also...
I'm mesmerized by this gif...I can't look away.
I'm mesmerized by this gif...I can't look away.
No sarcasm. Legitimately great job these scientists and astronomers have done detecting gravitational waves for a second time.
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