Gravitational waves are a reality, according to scientists from an institution that has been hoping to observe them.
"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it," said David Reitze, executive director of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
Reitze said one black hole had the mass of 29 suns; the other was the equivalent of 36 suns. Each was perhaps 150 kilometers (90 miles) in diameter, he said.
Gravitational waves 'like Jell-O'
The two collided at half the speed of light. The event occurred 1.3 billion years ago. Gravitational waves pass through everything, so the result traveled through the universe for that time before reaching Earth.
The gravitational waves stretched and compressed space around Earth "like Jell-O."
However, the waves are so small they need a detector like LIGO, capable of measuring distortions one-thousandth the size of a proton, to observe them. They were observed on September 14, 2015.
LIGO is described in a statement as "a system of two identical detectors" -- one located in Livingston, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington -- "carefully constructed to detect incredibly tiny vibrations from passing gravitational waves." The project was created by scientists from Caltech and MIT and funded by the National Science Foundation.
"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it," said David Reitze, executive director of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
Reitze said one black hole had the mass of 29 suns; the other was the equivalent of 36 suns. Each was perhaps 150 kilometers (90 miles) in diameter, he said.
Gravitational waves 'like Jell-O'
The two collided at half the speed of light. The event occurred 1.3 billion years ago. Gravitational waves pass through everything, so the result traveled through the universe for that time before reaching Earth.
The gravitational waves stretched and compressed space around Earth "like Jell-O."
However, the waves are so small they need a detector like LIGO, capable of measuring distortions one-thousandth the size of a proton, to observe them. They were observed on September 14, 2015.
LIGO is described in a statement as "a system of two identical detectors" -- one located in Livingston, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington -- "carefully constructed to detect incredibly tiny vibrations from passing gravitational waves." The project was created by scientists from Caltech and MIT and funded by the National Science Foundation.
