In Milestone, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves As Black Holes Collide
Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole.
And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist.
"It's a really big event," says Saul Teukolsky, a theoretical astrophysicist at Cornell University. "This is probably the most exciting episode of my professional career."
Einstein predicted the existence of such ripples, known officially as gravitational waves, in 1916, as part of his general theory of relativity. General relativity re-imagines the gravitational pull between heavy objects like the Earth and sun as a "warping" of space and time. When very heavy objects such as black holes are involved, the theory predicts that gravitational waves will emerge and ripple across the entire universe.
Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole.
And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist.
"It's a really big event," says Saul Teukolsky, a theoretical astrophysicist at Cornell University. "This is probably the most exciting episode of my professional career."
Einstein predicted the existence of such ripples, known officially as gravitational waves, in 1916, as part of his general theory of relativity. General relativity re-imagines the gravitational pull between heavy objects like the Earth and sun as a "warping" of space and time. When very heavy objects such as black holes are involved, the theory predicts that gravitational waves will emerge and ripple across the entire universe.
Code:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/11/466286219/in-milestone-scientists-detect-waves-in-space-time-as-black-holes-collide
