Gravitational waves have been detected for only the second time ever! They were detected by the same facility that had discovered them earlier, LIGO. The gravitational waves were caused by the merger of two black holes, one of 8 solar masses and the other of 14 solar masses, which took place 1.6 billion years ago. The earlier discovery involved another black hole merger of a black hole with 29 solar masses and another one with 36 solar masses.
This is very exciting news, because it goes a long way in proving that the first detection was by no means a fluke. In fact, scientists didn’t know whether we would ever detect gravitational waves just a year back. Even Einstein himself said that the gravitational waves, a consequence of his General Theory of Relativity, will never be detected. However, we have detected them now (two times!) and this has opened up speculation as to what such waves could be used to discover.
Gravitational waves could open up a window of opportunity for the study of stellar explosions, the merger of black holes and many more incredible areas of research! Such waves allow us to look (or in this case, hear!) the universe in a new, different way. In fact, in certain cases such as the black hole merger, gravitational waves might be the only way to find such events.
This is very exciting news, because it goes a long way in proving that the first detection was by no means a fluke. In fact, scientists didn’t know whether we would ever detect gravitational waves just a year back. Even Einstein himself said that the gravitational waves, a consequence of his General Theory of Relativity, will never be detected. However, we have detected them now (two times!) and this has opened up speculation as to what such waves could be used to discover.
Gravitational waves could open up a window of opportunity for the study of stellar explosions, the merger of black holes and many more incredible areas of research! Such waves allow us to look (or in this case, hear!) the universe in a new, different way. In fact, in certain cases such as the black hole merger, gravitational waves might be the only way to find such events.
Bijaya's creations 