The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016 Previously, gravitational waves had been inferred only indirectly, via their effect on the timing of pulsars in binary star systems. The waveform, detected by both LIGO observatories, matched the predictions of general relativity for a gravitational wave emanating from the inward spiral and merger of a pair of black holes of around 36 and 29 solar masses and the subsequent “ringdown” of the single resulting black hole.
The signal was named GW150914 (from “Gravitational Wave” and the date of observation 2015-09-14).[3][11] It was also the first observation of a binary black hole merger, demonstrating both the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems and the fact that such mergers could occur within the current age of the universe
LIGO measurement of gravitational waves.
This first direct observation was reported around the world as a remarkable accomplishment for many reasons. Efforts to directly prove the existence of such waves had been ongoing for over fifty years, and the waves are so minuscule that Albert Einstein himself doubted that they could ever be detected The waves given off by the cataclysmic merger of GW150914 reached Earth as a ripple in spacetime that changed the length of a 4 km LIGO arm by a thousandth of the width of a proton proportionally equivalent to changing the distance to the nearest star outside the Solar System by one hair’s width
The observation confirms the last remaining directly undetected prediction of general relativity and corroborates its predictions of space-time distortion in the context of large scale cosmic events
#black_hole
#black_hole_collusion
#collusion
#space
Source link
