Beneath the explosions, collisions and other intermittent bangs in the cosmos, scientists suspect a nonstop soundtrack plays, created by ripples in spacetime continually washing through the universe. After more than a decade of searching, scientists may have finally heard that background hum.
If that hunch is correct, the result would provide the first evidence that pairs of monster black holes, with masses billions of times that of the sun, can coalesce into one.
If the gravitational waves are real, and if they truly are a signal of supermassive black hole pairs, “it’s miraculous,” says astrophysicist Meg Urry of Yale University. “It’s extremely interesting, because we have essentially no handle on what the most massive black holes are doing.”
Gravitational waves are produced by accelerating, massive objects. As these waves careen through the universe, they rumple the fabric of spacetime upon which reality is embroidered. In 2015, scientists with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, detected gravitational waves for the first time (SN: 2/11/16). Those waves were spawned by mergers of relatively puny black holes, entirely different beasts than the supermassive ones that lurk at the centers of galaxies (SN: 2/11/16).
2023-06-28 19:00:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org
rnrn
Beneath the explosions, collisions and other intermittent bangs in the cosmos, scientists suspect a nonstop soundtrack plays, created by ripples in spacetime continually washing through the universe. After more than a decade of searching, scientists may have finally heard that background hum.
If that hunch is correct, the result would provide the first evidence that pairs of monster black holes, with masses billions of times that of the sun, can coalesce into one.
If the gravitational waves are real, and if they truly are a signal of supermassive black hole pairs, “it’s miraculous,” says astrophysicist Meg Urry of Yale University. “It’s extremely interesting, because we have essentially no handle on what the most massive black holes are doing.”
Gravitational waves are produced by accelerating, massive objects. As these waves careen through the universe, they rumple the fabric of spacetime upon which reality is embroidered. In 2015, scientists with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, detected gravitational waves for the first time (SN: 2/11/16). Those waves were spawned by mergers of relatively puny black holes, entirely different beasts than the supermassive ones that lurk at the centers of galaxies (SN: 2/11/16).
2023-06-28 19:00:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org
rnrn
