Space and astronomy news
Underneath all the gravitational waves we see are faint primordial waves. If we can detect them, it could change our understanding of the cosmos.
[/caption] The only way to know what the Universe was like at the moment of the Big Bang requires analysis of gravitational waves created when the Universe began. Scientists working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) say their initial investigations of these gravitiation waves have turned up nothing. But that’s a good thing. Not …
Continue reading “New Limits on Gravitational Waves From the Big Bang”
In February 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) confirmed they made the first-ever detection of gravitational waves (GWs). These events occur when massive objects like neutron stars and black holes merge, sending ripples through spacetime that can be detected millions (and even billions) of light-years away. Since the first event, more than …
Cosmologists have long hypothesized that the conditions of the early universe could have caused the formation of black holes not long after the Big Bang. These ‘primordial black holes’ have a much wider mass range than those that formed in the later universe from the death of stars, with some even condensed to the width …
Scientists detected the first long-predicted gravitational wave in 2015, and since then, researchers have been hungering for better detectors. But the Earth is warm and seismically noisy, and that will always limit the effectiveness of Earth-based detectors.
The science of studying gravitational waves just got a big boost thanks to the European Space Agency. Its science program committee just approved the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna—affectionately known as LISA—for official planning and building. That means gravitational wave astronomers will take their next steps to capture information about gravity waves from space.
Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remnants from massive star supernovae. Although they’re pulled into dense spheres by their intense gravity, it’s believed that neutron stars could have slight deformations, known as “mountains,” caused by crustal strains and interactions with magnetic fields. If the mountains are there, merging neutron stars should slightly distort the signal received by gravitational wave observatories.
The NSF just awarded researchers at UChicago to start developing the CMB-S4 experiment, which will map the earliest moments of the Universe!
Our biology limits our vision. Our eyes can only perceive specific wavelengths of light. But what if we could see the Universe in gravitational waves? A new NASA simulation mapped out hundreds of collisions between dense objects, like white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. These collisions happen within galaxies, sending ripples of gravitational waves across the Universe, and would allow astronomers to recreate the shape of galaxies over time. Upcoming observatories will detect tens of thousands of ultra-compact binary stars, providing even higher resolution—an entirely new way to observe the Universe.
Despite the enormous densities, the early universe didn’t collapse into a black hole because, simply put, there was nothing to collapse into.