Gravitational Waves Archives

October 4, 2017October 3, 2018 by Matt Williams

LIGO Scientists who Detected Gravitational Waves Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics

Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne, two of the recipients for the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics for their work with gravitational wave research. Credit: Caltech

In February of 2016, scientists working for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made history when they announced the first-ever detection of gravitational waves. Since that time, multiple detections have taken place and scientific collaborations between observatories – like Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo – are allowing for unprecedented levels of sensitivity and data sharing.

Not only was the first-time detection of gravity waves an historic accomplishment, it ushered in a new era of astrophysics. It is little wonder then why the three researchers who were central to the first detection have been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize was awarded jointly to Caltech professors emeritus Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish, along with MIT professor emeritus Rainer Weiss.

To put it simply, gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that are formed by major astronomical events – such as the merger of a binary black hole pair. They were first predicted over a century ago by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which indicated that massive perturbations would alter the structure of space-time. However, it was not until recent years that evidence of these waves was observed for the first time.

The first signal was detected by LIGO’s twin observatories – in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, respectively – and traced to a black mole merger 1.3 billion light-years away. To date, four detections have been, all of which were due to the mergers of black-hole pairs. These took place on December 26, 2015, January 4, 2017, and August 14, 2017, the last being detected by LIGO and the European Virgo gravitational-wave detector.

For the role they played in this accomplishment, one half of the prize was awarded jointly to Caltech’s Barry C. Barish – the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Physics, Emeritus – and Kip S. Thorne, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus. The other half was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

As Caltech president Thomas F. Rosenbaum – the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and Professor of Physics – said in a recent Caltech press statement:

“I am delighted and honored to congratulate Kip and Barry, as well as Rai Weiss of MIT, on the award this morning of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. The first direct observation of gravitational waves by LIGO is an extraordinary demonstration of scientific vision and persistence. Through four decades of development of exquisitely sensitive instrumentation—pushing the capacity of our imaginations—we are now able to glimpse cosmic processes that were previously undetectable. It is truly the start of a new era in astrophysics.”

This accomplishment was all the more impressive considering that Albert Einstein, who first predicted their existence, believed gravitational waves would be too weak to study. However, by the 1960s, advances in laser technology and new insights into possible astrophysical sources led scientists to conclude that these waves might actually be detectable.

The first gravity wave detectors were built by Joseph Weber, an astrophysics from the University of Maryland. His detectors, which were built in the 1960s, consisted of large aluminum cylinders that would be driven to vibrate by passing gravitational waves. Other attempts followed, but all proved unsuccessful; prompting a shift towards a new type of detector involving interferometry.

One such instrument was developed by Weiss at MIT, which relied on the technique known as laser interferometry. In this kind of instrument, gravitational waves are measured using widely spaced and separated mirrors that reflect lasers over long distances. When gravitational waves cause space to stretch and squeeze by infinitesimal amounts, it causes the reflected light inside the detector to shift minutely.

At the same time, Thorne – along with his students and postdocs at Caltech – began working to improve the theory of gravitational waves. This included new estimates on the strength and frequency of waves produced by objects like black holes, neutron stars and supernovae. This culminated in a 1972 paper which Throne co-published with his student, Bill Press, which summarized their vision of how gravitational waves could be studied.

That same year, Weiss also published a detailed analysis of interferometers and their potential for astrophysical research. In this paper, he stated that larger-scale operations – measuring several km or more in size – might have a shot at detecting gravitational waves. He also identified the major challenges to detection (such as vibrations from the Earth) and proposed possible solutions for countering them.

*Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne, two of three recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Credit: Caltech*

In 1975, Weiss invited Thorne to speak at a NASA committee meeting in Washington, D.C., and the two spent an entire night talking about gravitational experiments. As a result of their conversation, Thorne went back to Calteh and proposed creating a experimental gravity group, which would work on interferometers in parallel with researchers at MIT, the University of Glasgow and the University of Garching (where similar experiments were being conducted).

Development on the first interferometer began shortly thereafter at Caltech, which led to the creation of a 40-meter (130-foot) prototype to test Weiss’ theories about gravitational waves. In 1984, all of the work being conducted by these respective institutions came together. Caltech and MIT, with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) formed the LIGO collaboration and began work on its two interferometers in Hanford and Livingston.

The construction of LIGO was a major challenge, both logistically and technically. However, things were helped immensely when Barry Barish (then a Caltech particle physicist) became the Principal Investigator (PI) of LIGO in 1994. After a decade of stalled attempts, he was also made the director of LIGO and put its construction back on track. He also expanded the research team and developed a detailed work plan for the NSF.

As Barish indicated, the work he did with LIGO was something of a dream come true:

“I always wanted to be an experimental physicist and was attracted to the idea of using continuing advances in technology to carry out fundamental science experiments that could not be done otherwise. LIGO is a prime example of what couldn’t be done before. Although it was a very large-scale project, the challenges were very different from the way we build a bridge or carry out other large engineering projects. For LIGO, the challenge was and is how to develop and design advanced instrumentation on a large scale, even as the project evolves.”

*LIGO’s two facilities, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. Credit: ligo.caltech.edu*

By 1999, construction had wrapped up on the LIGO observatories and by 2002, LIGO began to obtain data. In 2008, work began on improving its original detectors, known as the Advanced LIGO Project. The process of converting the 40-m prototype to LIGO’s current 4-km (2.5 mi) interferometers was a massive undertaking, and therefore needed to be broken down into steps.

The first step took place between 2002 and 2010, when the team built and tested the initial interferometers. While this did not result in any detections, it did demonstrate the observatory’s basic concepts and solved many of the technical obstacles. The next phase – called Advanced LIGO, which took placed between 2010 and 2015 – allowed the detectors to achieve new levels of sensitivity.

These upgrades, which also happened under Barish’s leadership, allowed for the development of several key technologies which ultimately made the first detection possible. As Barish explained:

“In the initial phase of LIGO, in order to isolate the detectors from the earth’s motion, we used a suspension system that consisted of test-mass mirrors hung by piano wire and used a multiple-stage set of passive shock absorbers, similar to those in your car. We knew this probably would not be good enough to detect gravitational waves, so we, in the LIGO Laboratory, developed an ambitious program for Advanced LIGO that incorporated a new suspension system to stabilize the mirrors and an active seismic isolation system to sense and correct for ground motions.”

*Rainer Weiss, famed MIT physicist and partial winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Credit: MIT/Bryce Vickmark*

Given how central Thorne, Weiss and Barish were to the study of gravitational waves, all three were rightly-recognized as this year’s recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Both Thorne and Barish were notified that they had won in the early morning hours on October 3rd, 2017. In response to the news, both scientists were sure to acknowledge the ongoing efforts of LIGO, the science teams that have contributed to it, and the efforts of Caltech and MIT in creating and maintaining the observatories.

“The prize rightfully belongs to the hundreds of LIGO scientists and engineers who built and perfected our complex gravitational-wave interferometers, and the hundreds of LIGO and Virgo scientists who found the gravitational-wave signals in LIGO’s noisy data and extracted the waves’ information,” said Thorne. “It is unfortunate that, due to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, the prize has to go to no more than three people, when our marvelous discovery is the work of more than a thousand.”

“I am humbled and honored to receive this award,” said Barish. “The detection of gravitational waves is truly a triumph of modern large-scale experimental physics. Over several decades, our teams at Caltech and MIT developed LIGO into the incredibly sensitive device that made the discovery. When the signal reached LIGO from a collision of two stellar black holes that occurred 1.3 billion years ago, the 1,000-scientist-strong LIGO Scientific Collaboration was able to both identify the candidate event within minutes and perform the detailed analysis that convincingly demonstrated that gravitational waves exist.”

Looking ahead, it is also pretty clear that Advanved LIGO, Advanced Virgo and other gravitational wave observatories around the world are just getting started. In addition to having detected four separate events, recent studies have indicated that gravitational wave detection could also open up new frontiers for astronomical and cosmological research.

For instance, a recent study by a team of researchers from the Monash Center for Astrophysics proposed a theoretical concept known as ‘orphan memory’. According to their research, gravitational waves not only cause waves in space-time, but leave permanent ripples in its structure. By studying the “orphans” of past events, gravitational waves can be studied both as they reach Earth and long after they pass.

In addition, a study was released in August by a team of astronomers from the Center of Cosmology at the University of California Irvine that indicated that black hole mergers are far more common than we thought. After conducting a survey of the cosmos intended to calculate and categorize black holes, the UCI team determined that there could be as many as 100 million black holes in the galaxy.

Another recent study indicated that the Advanced LIGO, GEO 600, and Virgo gravitational-wave detector network could also be used to detect the gravitational waves created by supernovae. By detecting the waves created by star that explode near the end of their lifespans, astronomers could be able to see inside the hearts of collapsing stars for the first time and probe the mechanics of black hole formation.

The Nobel Prize in Physics is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a scientist. But even greater than that is the knowledge that great things resulted from one’s own work. Decades after Thorne, Weiss and Barish began proposing gravitational wave studies and working towards the creation of detectors, scientists from all over the world are making profound discoveries that are revolutionizing the way we think of the Universe.

And as these scientists will surely attest, what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. One can imagine that somewhere, Einstein is also beaming with pride. As with other research pertaining to his theory of General Relativity, the study of gravitational waves is demonstrating that even after a century, his predictions were still bang on!

And be sure to check out this video of the Caltech Press Conference where Barish and Thorn were honored for their accomplishments:

Further Reading: NASA, Caltech

September 28, 2017 by Matt Williams

LIGO and Virgo Observatories Detect Black Holes Colliding

In February 2016, LIGO detected gravity waves for the first time. As this artist's illustration depicts, the gravitational waves were created by merging black holes. The third detection just announced was also created when two black holes merged. Credit: LIGO/A. Simonnet. — Artist's impression of merging binary black holes. Credit: LIGO/A. Simonnet.

On February 11th, 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the first detection of gravitational waves. This development, which confirmed a prediction made by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity a century ago, has opened up new avenues of research for cosmologists and astrophysicists. Since that time, more detections have been made, all of which were said to be the result of black holes merging.

The latest detection took place on August 14th, 2017, when three observatories – the Advanced LIGO and the Advanced Virgo detectors – simultaneously detected the gravitational waves created by merging black holes. This was the first time that gravitational waves were detected by three different facilities from around the world, thus ushering in a new era of globally-networked research into this cosmic phenomena.

The study which detailed these observations was recently published online by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration. Titled “GW170814 : A Three-Detector Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Coalescence“, this study has also been accepted for publication in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

*Aerial view of the Virgo Observatory. Credit: The Virgo collaboration/CCO 1.0*

The event, designated as GW170814, was observed at 10:30:43 UTC (06:30:43 EDT; 03:30:43 PDT) on August 14th, 2017. The event was detected by the National Science Foundation‘s two LIGO detectors (located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington) and the Virgo detector located near Pisa, Italy – which is maintained by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN).

Though not the first instance of gravitational waves being detected, this was the first time that an event was detected by three observatories simultaneously. As France Córdova, the director of the NSF, said in a recent LIGO press release:

“Little more than a year and a half ago, NSF announced that its Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory had made the first-ever detection of gravitational waves, which resulted from the collision of two black holes in a galaxy a billion light-years away. Today, we are delighted to announce the first discovery made in partnership between the Virgo gravitational-wave observatory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the first time a gravitational wave detection was observed by these observatories, located thousands of miles apart. This is an exciting milestone in the growing international scientific effort to unlock the extraordinary mysteries of our universe.”

Based on the waves detected, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and Virgo collaboration were able to determine the type of event, as well as the mass of the objects involved. According to their study, the event was triggered by the merger of two black holes – which were 31 and 25 Solar Masses, respectively. The event took place about 1.8 billion light years from Earth, and resulted in the formation of a spinning black hole with about 53 Solar Masses.

What this means is that about three Solar Masses were converted into gravitational-wave energy during the merger, which was then detected by LIGO and Virgo. While impressive on its own, this latest detection is merely a taste of what gravitational wave detectors like the LIGO and Virgo collaborations can do now that they have entered their advanced stages, and into cooperation with each other.

Both Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are second-generation gravitational-wave detectors that have taken over from previous ones. The LIGO facilities, which were conceived, built, and are operated by Caltech and MIT, collected data unsuccessfully between 2002 and 2010. However, as of September of 2015, Advanced LIGO went online and began conducting two observing runs – O1 and O2.

Meanwhile, the original Virgo detector conducted observations between 2003 and October of 2011, once again without success. By February of 2017, the integration of the Advanced Virgo detector began, and the instruments went online by the following April. In 2007, Virgo and LIGO also partnered to share and jointly analyze the data recorded by their respective detectors.

In August of 2017, the Virgo detector joined the O2 run, and the first-ever simultaneous detection took place on August 14th, with data being gathered by all three LIGO and Virgo instruments. As LSC spokesperson David Shoemaker – a researcher with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – indicated, this detection is just the first of many anticipated events.

“This is just the beginning of observations with the network enabled by Virgo and LIGO working together,” he said. “With the next observing run planned for fall 2018, we can expect such detections weekly or even more often.”

Not only will this mean that scientists have a better shot of detecting future events, but they will also be able to pinpoint them with far greater accuracy. In fact, the transition from a two- to a three-detector network is expected to increase the likelihood of pinpointing the source of GW170814 by a factory of 20. The sky region for GW170814 is just 60 square degrees – more than 10 times smaller than with data from LIGO’s interferometers alone.

In addition, the accuracy with which the distance to the source is measured has also benefited from this partnership. As Laura Cadonati, a Georgia Tech professor and the deputy spokesperson of the LSC, explained:

“This increased precision will allow the entire astrophysical community to eventually make even more exciting discoveries, including multi-messenger observations. A smaller search area enables follow-up observations with telescopes and satellites for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves and emissions of light, such as the collision of neutron stars.”

*Artist’s impression of gravitational waves. Credit: NASA*

In the end, bringing more detectors into the gravitational-wave network will also allow for more detailed test’s of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. Caltech’s David H. Reitze, the executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, also praised the new partnership and what it will allow for.

“With this first joint detection by the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors, we have taken one step further into the gravitational-wave cosmos,” he said. “Virgo brings a powerful new capability to detect and better locate gravitational-wave sources, one that will undoubtedly lead to exciting and unanticipated results in the future.”

The study of gravitational waves is a testament to the growing capability of the world’s science teams and the science of interferometry. For decades, the existence of gravitational waves was merely a theory; and by the turn of the century, all attempts to detect them had yielded nothing. But in just the past eighteen months, multiple detections have been made, and dozens more are expected in the coming years.

What’s more, thanks to the new global network and the improved instruments and methods, these events are sure to tell us volumes about our Universe and the physics that govern it.

Further Reading: NSF, LIGO-Caltech, LIGO DD

September 11, 2017September 11, 2017 by Matt Williams

Gravitational Waves will let us see Inside Stars as Supernovae Happen

Artistic representation of the material around the supernova 1987A. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

However, according to a team of astronomers from Glasgow and Arizona, astronomers need not limit themselves to detecting waves caused by massive gravitational mergers. According to a study they recently produced, the Advanced LIGO, GEO 600, and Virgo gravitational-wave detector network could also detect the gravitational waves created by supernova. In so doing, astronomers will able to see inside the hearts of collapsing stars for the first time.

The study, titled “Inferring the Core-Collapse Supernova Explosion Mechanism with Three-Dimensional Gravitational-Wave Simulations“, recently appeared online. Led by Jade Powell, who recently finished her PhD at the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow, the team argue that current gravitational wave experiments should be able to detect the waves created by Core Collapse Supernovae (CSNe).

Otherwise known as Type II supernovae, CCSNe are what happens when a massive star reaches the end of its lifespan and experiences rapid collapse. This triggers a massive explosion that blows off the outer layers of the star, leaving behind a remnant neutron star that may eventually become a black hole. In order for a star to undergo such collapse, it must be at least 8 times (but no more than 40 to 50 times) the mass of the Sun.

When these types of supernovae take place, it is believed that neutrinos produced in the core transfer gravitational energy released by core collapse to the cooler outer regions of the star. Dr. Powell and her colleagues believe that this gravitational energy could be detected using current and future instruments. As they explain in their study:

“Although no CCSNe have currently been detected by gravitational-wave detectors, previous studies indicate that an advanced detector network may be sensitive to these sources out to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A CCSN would be an ideal multi-messenger source for aLIGO and AdV, as neutrino and electromagnetic counterparts to the signal would be expected. The gravitational waves are emitted from deep inside the core of CCSNe, which may allow astrophysical parameters, such as the equation of state (EOS), to be measured from the reconstruction of the gravitational-wave signal.”

Dr. Powell and her also outline a procedure in their study that could be implemented using the Supernova model Evidence Extractor (SMEE). The team then conducted simulations using the latest three-dimensional models of gravitational-wave core collapse supernovae to determine if background noise could be eliminated and proper detection of CCSNe signals made.

As Dr. Powell explained to Universe Today via email:

“The Supernova Model Evidence Extractor (SMEE) is an algorithm that we use to determine how supernovae get the huge amount of energy they need to explode. It uses Bayesian statistics to distinguish between different possible explosion models. The first model we consider in the paper is that the explosion energy comes from the neutrinos emitted by the star. In the second model the explosion energy comes from rapid rotation and extremely strong magnetic fields.”

From this, the team concluded that in a three-detector network researchers could correctly determine the explosion mechanics for rapidly-rotating supernovae, depending on their distance. At a distance of 10 kiloparsecs (32,615 light-years) they would be able to detect signals of CCSNe with 100% accuracy, and signals at 2 kiloparsecs (6,523 light-years) with 95% accuracy.

In other words, if and when a supernova takes place in the local galaxy, the global network formed by the Advanced LIGO, Virgo and GEO 600 gravitational wave detectors would have an excellent chance of picking up on it. The detection of these signals would also allow for some groundbreaking science, enabling scientists to “see” inside of exploding stars for the first time. As Dr. Powell explained:

“The gravitational waves are emitted from deep inside the core of the star where no electromagnetic radiation can escape. This allows a gravitational wave detection to tell us information about the explosion mechanism that can not be determined with other methods. We may also be able to determine other parameters such as how rapidly the star is rotating.”

*Illustration showing the merger of two black holes and the gravitational waves that ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other. Credit: LIGO/T. Pyle*

Dr. Powell, having recently completed work on her PhD will also be taking up a postdoc position with the RC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), the gravitational wave program hosted by the University of Swinburne in Australia. In the meantime, she and her colleagues will be conducting targeted searchers for supernovae that occurred during the first and seconds advanced detector observing runs.

While there are no guarantees at this point that they will find the sought-after signals that would demonstrate that supernovae are detectable, the team has high hopes. And given the possibilities that this research holds for astrophysics and astronomy, they are hardly alone!

Further Reading: arXiv

August 11, 2017August 11, 2017 by Matt Williams

Cosmic Census Says There Could be 100 Million Black Holes in our Galaxy Alone

Artist's conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO on January 4th, 2017. Credit: LIGO/Caltech

In January of 2016, researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made history when they announced the first-ever detection of gravitational waves. Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by Caltech and MIT, LIGO is dedicated to studying the waves predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and caused by black hole mergers.

According to a new study by a team of astronomers from the Center of Cosmology at the University of California Irvine, such mergers are far more common than we thought. After conducting a survey of the cosmos intended to calculate and categorize black holes, the UCI team determined that there could be as many as 100 million black holes in the galaxy, a finding which has significant implications for the study of gravitational waves.

The study which details their findings, titled “Counting Black Holes: The Cosmic Stellar Remnant Population and Implications for LIGO“, recently appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Led by Oliver D. Elbert, a postdoc student with the department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine, the team conducted an analysis of gravitational wave signals that have been detected by LIGO.

Their study began roughly a year and a half ago, shortly after LIGO announced the first detection of gravitational waves. These waves were created by the merger of two distant black holes, each of which was equivalent in mass to about 30 Suns. As James Bullock, a professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine and a co-author on the paper, explained in a UCI press release:

“Fundamentally, the detection of gravitational waves was a huge deal, as it was a confirmation of a key prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But then we looked closer at the astrophysics of the actual result, a merger of two 30-solar-mass black holes. That was simply astounding and had us asking, ‘How common are black holes of this size, and how often do they merge?’”

Traditionally, astronomers have been of the opinion that black holes would typically be about the same mass as our Sun. As such, they sought to interpret the multiple gravitational wave detections made by LIGO in terms of what is known about galaxy formation. Beyond this, they also sought to create a framework for predicting future black hole mergers.

From this, they concluded that the Milky Way Galaxy would be home to up to 100 million black holes, 10 millions of which would have an estimated mass of about 30 Solar masses – i.e. similar to those that merged and created the first gravitational waves detected by LIGO in 2016. Meanwhile, dwarf galaxies – like the Draco Dwarf, which orbits at a distance of about 250,000 ly from the center of our galaxy – would host about 100 black holes.

They further determined that today, most low-mass black holes (~10 Solar masses) reside within galaxies of 1 trillion Solar masses (massive galaxies) while massive black holes (~50 Solar masses) reside within galaxies that have about 10 billion Solar masses (i.e. dwarf galaxies). After considering the relationship between galaxy mass and stellar metallicity, they interpreted a galaxy’s black hole count as a function of its stellar mass.

In addition, they also sought to determine how often black holes occur in pairs, how often they merge and how long this would take. Their analysis indicated that only a tiny fraction of black holes would need to be involved in mergers to accommodate what LIGO observed. It also offered predictions that showed how even larger black holes could be merging within the next decade.

As Manoj Kaplinghat, also a UCI professor of physics and astronomy and the second co-author on the study, explained:

“We show that only 0.1 to 1 percent of the black holes formed have to merge to explain what LIGO saw. Of course, the black holes have to get close enough to merge in a reasonable time, which is an open problem… If the current ideas about stellar evolution are right, then our calculations indicate that mergers of even 50-solar-mass black holes will be detected in a few years.”

In other words, our galaxy could be teeming with black holes, and mergers could be happening in a regular basis (relative to cosmological timescales). As such, we can expect that many more gravity wave detections will be possible in the coming years. This should come as no surprise, seeing as how LIGO has made two additional detections since the winter of 2016.

With many more expected to come, astronomers will have many opportunities to study black holes mergers, not to mention the physics that drive them!

Further Reading: UCI, MNRAS

June 21, 2017 by Matt Williams

LISA is On! Gravitational Wave Detection is Going to Space

Artist's impression of two merging black holes. Credit: Bohn, Throwe, Hébert, Henriksson, Bunandar, Taylor, Scheel/SXS

The discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO experiment in 2015 sent ripples through the scientific community. Originally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the confirmation of these waves (and two subsequent detections) solved a long-standing cosmological mystery. In addition to bending the fabric of space-time, it is now known that gravity can also create perturbations that can be detected billions of light-years away.

Seeking to capitalize on these discoveries and conduct new and exciting research into gravitational waves, the European Space Agency (ESA) recently green-lighted the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission. Consisting of three satellites that will measure gravitational waves directly through laser interferometry, this mission will be the first space-based gravitational wave detector.

This decision was announced yesterday (Tuesday, June 20th) during a meeting of ESA’s Science Program Committee (SPC). It’s implementation is part of the ESA’s Cosmic Vision plan – the current cycle of the agency’s long-term planning for space science missions – which began in 2015 and will be running until 2025. It is also in keeping with the ESA’s desire to study the “invisible universe“, a policy that was adopted in 2013.

To accomplish this, the three satellites that make up the LISA constellation will be deployed into orbit around Earth. Once there, they will assume a triangular formation – spaced 2.5 million km (1.55 million mi) apart – and follow Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Here, isolated from all external influences but Earth’s gravity, they will then connect to each other by laser and begin looking for minute perturbations in the fabric of space-time.

Much like how the LIGO experiment and other gravitational wave detectors work, the LISA mission will rely on laser interferometry. This process consists of a beam of electromagnetic energy (in this case, a laser) being split in two and then recombined to look for patterns of interference. In LISA’s case, two satellites play the role of reflectors while the remaining one is the both source of the lasers and the observer of the laser beam.

When a gravitational wave passes through the triangle established by the three satellites, the lengths of the two laser beams will vary due to the space-time distortions caused by the wave. By comparing the laser beam frequency in the return beam to the frequency of the sent beam, LISA will be able to measure the level of distortion.

These measurements will have to be extremely precise, since the distortions they are looking for affect the fabric of space-time on the most minuscule of levels – a few millionths of a millionth of a meter over a distance of a million kilometers. Luckily, the technology to detect these waves has already been tested by the LISA Pathfinder mission, which deployed in 2015 and will conclude its mission at the end of the month.

*Artist’s concept of the LISA mission. Credit: AEI/Milde Marketing/Exozet*

In the coming weeks and months, the ESA will be looking over the design of the LISA mission and completing a cost assessment. If all goes as planned, the mission will be proposed for “adoption” before construction begins and it is expected to be launched by 2034. In the same meeting, the ESA also adopted another important mission that will be searching for exoplanets in the coming years.

This mission is known as the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, or PLATO, mission. Like Kepler, this mission will monitor stars within a large sections of the sky to look for small dips in their brightness, which are caused by planets passing between the star and the observer (i.e. the transit method). Originally selected in February of 2014, this mission is now moving from the blueprint phase into construction and will launch in 2026.

It’s an exciting time for the European Space Agency. In recent years, it has committed itself to multiple endeavors in the hope of maintaining Europe’s commitment to and continued presence in space. These include studying the “invisible universe”, mounting missions to the Moon and Mars, maintaining a commitment to the International Space Station, and even building a successor to the ISS on the Moon!

Further Reading: ESA

June 1, 2017 by Evan Gough

Third Gravitational Wave Event Detected

A third gravitational wave has been detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). An international team announced the detection today, while the event itself was detected on January 4th, 2017. Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein over a century ago.

LIGO consists of two facilities: one in Hanford, Washington and one in Livingston, Louisiana. When LIGO announced its first gravitational wave back in February 2016 (detected in September 2015), it opened up a new window into astronomy. With this gravitational wave, the third one detected, that new window is getting larger. So far, all three waves detected have been created by the merging of black holes.

The team, including engineers and scientists from Northwestern University in Illinois, published their results in the journal Physical Review Letters.

When the first gravitational wave was finally detected, over a hundred years after Einstein predicted it, it helped confirm Einstein’s description of space-time as an integrated continuum. It’s often said that it’s not a good idea to bet against Einstein, and this third detection just strengthens Einstein’s theory.

Like the previous two detections, this one was created by the merging of two black holes. These two were different sizes from each other; one was about 31.2 solar masses, and the other was about 19.4 solar masses. The combined 50 solar mass event caused the third wave, which is named GW170104. The black holes were about 3 billion light years away.

“…an intriguing black hole population…” – Vicky Kalogera, Senior Astrophysicist, LIGO Scientific Collaboration

LIGO is showing us that their is a population of binary black holes out there. “Our handful of detections so far is revealing an intriguing black hole population we did not know existed until now,” said Northwestern’s Vicky Kalogera, a senior astrophysicist with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), which conducts research related to the twin LIGO detectors, located in the U.S.

“Now we have three pairs of black holes, each pair ending their death spiral dance over millions or billions of years in some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. In astronomy, we say with three objects of the same type you have a class. We have a population, and we can do analysis.”

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)facility in Livingston, Louisiana. The other facility is located in Hanford, Washington. Image: LIGO

When we say that gravitational waves have opened up a new window on astronomy, that window opens onto black holes themselves. Beyond confirming Einstein’s predictions, and establishing a population of binary black holes, LIGO can characterize and measure those black holes. We can learn the holes’ masses and their spin characteristics.

“Once again, the black holes are heavy,“ said Shane Larson, of Northwestern University and Adler Planetarium in Chicago. “The first black holes LIGO detected were twice as heavy as we ever would have expected. Now we’ve all been churning our cranks trying to figure out all the interesting myriad ways we can imagine the universe making big and heavy black holes. And Northwestern is strong in this research area, so we are excited.”

This third finding strengthens the case for the existence of a new class of black holes: binary black holes that are locked in relationship with each other. It also shows that these objects can be larger than thought before LIGO detected them.

“It is remarkable that humans can put together a story and test it, for such strange and extreme events that took place billions of years ago and billions of light-years distant from us.” – David Shoemaker, MIT

“We have further confirmation of the existence of black holes that are heavier than 20 solar masses, objects we didn’t know existed before LIGO detected them,” said David Shoemaker of MIT, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration . “It is remarkable that humans can put together a story and test it, for such strange and extreme events that took place billions of years ago and billions of light-years distant from us.”

An artist's impression of two merging black holes. Image: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart — An artist’s impression of two merging black holes. Image: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

“With the third confirmed detection of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes, LIGO is establishing itself as a powerful observatory for revealing the dark side of the universe,” said David Reitze of Caltech, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory and a Northwestern alumnus. “While LIGO is uniquely suited to observing these types of events, we hope to see other types of astrophysical events soon, such as the violent collision of two neutron stars.”

A tell-tale chirping sound confirms the detection of a gravitational wave, and you can hear it described and explained here, on a Northwestern University podcast.

Sources:

May 23, 2017May 23, 2017 by Matt Williams

Do Gravitational Waves Permanently Alter the Nature of Spacetime?

On February 11th, 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the first detection of gravitational waves. This development, which confirmed a prediction made by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity a century prior, opened new avenues of research for cosmologists and astrophysicists. It was also a watershed for researchers at Monash University, who played an important role in the discovery.

And now, a little over a year later, a team of researchers from the Monash Center for Astrophysics has announced another potential revelation. Based on their ongoing studies of gravitational waves, the team recently proposed a theoretical concept known as ‘orphan memory’. If true, this concept could revolutionize the way we think about gravitational waves and spacetime.

Researchers from Monash Center for Astrophysics are part of what is known as the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) – a group of scientists dedicated to developing the hardware and software needed to study gravitational waves. In addition to creating a system for vetting detections, the team played a key role in data analysis – observing and interpreting the data that was gathered – and were also instrumental in the design of the LIGO mirrors.

Looking beyond what LIGO and other experiments (like the Virgo Interferometer) observed, the research team sought to address how these detectors capabilities could be extended further by finding the “memory” of gravitational waves. The study that describes this theory was recently published in the Physical Review Letters under the title “Detecting Gravitational Wave Memory without Parent Signals“.

According to their new theory, spacetime does not return to its normal state after a cataclysmic event generates gravitational waves that cause it to stretch out. Instead, it remains stretched, which they refer to as “orphan memory” – the word “orphan” alluding to the fact the “parent wave” is not directly detectable. While this effect has yet to be observed, it could open up some very interesting opportunities for gravitational wave research.

At present, detectors like LIGO and Virgo are only able to discern the presence of gravitational waves at certain frequencies. As such, researchers are only able to study waves generated by specific types of events and trace them back to their source. As Lucy McNeill, a researchers from the Monash Center for Astrophysics and the lead author on the paper, said in a recent University press statement:

“If there are exotic sources of gravitational waves out there, for example, from micro black holes, LIGO would not hear them because they are too high-frequency. But this study shows LIGO can be used to probe the universe for gravitational waves that were once thought to be invisible to it.”

As they indicate in their study, high-frequency gravitational-wave bursts (i.e. ones that are in or below the kilohertz range) would produce orphan memory that the LIGO and Virgo detectors would be able to pick up. This would not only increase the bandwidth of these detectors exponentially, but open up the possibility of finding evidence of gravity wave bursts in previous searches that went unnoticed.

Dr Eric Thrane, a lecturer at the Monash School of Physics and Astronomy and another a member of the LSC team, was also one of the co-authors of the new study. As he stated, “These waves could open the way for studying physics currently inaccessible to our technology.”

But as they admit in their study, such sources might not even exist and more research is needed to confirm that “orphan memory” is in fact real. Nevertheless, they maintain that searching for high-frequency sources is a useful way to probe for new physics, and it just might reveal things we weren’t expecting to find.

“A dedicated gravitational-wave memory search is desirable. It will have enhanced sensitivity compared to current burst searches,” they state. “Further, a dedicated search can be used to determine whether a detection candidate is consistent with a memory burst by checking to see if the residuals (following signal subtraction) are consistent with Gaussian noise.”

Alas, such searches may have to wait upon the proposed successors to the Advanced LIGO experiment. These include the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, two proposed third-generation gravitational wave detectors. Depending on what future surveys find, we may discover that spacetime not only stretches from the creation of gravitational waves, but also bears the “stretch marks” to prove it!

Further Reading: Physical Review Letters

March 6, 2017April 4, 2017 by Evan Gough

Towards A New Understanding Of Dark Matter

Dark matter remains largely mysterious, but astrophysicists keep trying to crack open that mystery. Last year’s discovery of gravity waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) may have opened up a new window into the dark matter mystery. Enter what are known as ‘primordial black holes.’

Theorists have predicted the existence of particles called Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS). These WIMPs could be what dark matter is made of. But the problem is, there’s no experimental evidence to back it up. The mystery of dark matter is still an open case file.

When LIGO detected gravitational waves last year, it renewed interest in another theory attempting to explain dark matter. That theory says that dark matter could actually be in the form of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), not the aforementioned WIMPS.

Primordial black holes are different than the black holes you’re probably thinking of. Those are called stellar black holes, and they form when a large enough star collapses in on itself at the end of its life. The size of these stellar black holes is limited by the size and evolution of the stars that they form from.

This artist’s drawing shows a stellar black hole as it pulls matter from a blue star beside it. Could the stellar black hole’s cousin, the primordial black hole, account for the dark matter in our Universe?
Credits: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Unlike stellar black holes, primordial black holes originated in high density fluctuations of matter during the first moments of the Universe. They can be much larger, or smaller, than stellar black holes. PBHs could be as small as asteroids or as large as 30 solar masses, even larger. They could also be more abundant, because they don’t require a large mass star to form.

When two of these PBHs larger than about 30 solar masses merge together, they would create the gravitational waves detected by LIGO. The theory says that these primordial black holes would be found in the halos of galaxies.

If there are enough of these intermediate sized PBHs in galactic halos, they would have an effect on light from distant quasars as it passes through the halo. This effect is called ‘micro-lensing’. The micro-lensing would concentrate the light and make the quasars appear brighter.

A depiction of quasar microlensing. The microlensing object in the foreground galaxy could be a star (as depicted), a primordial black hole, or any other compact object. Credit: NASA/Jason Cowan (Astronomy Technology Center).

The effect of this micro-lensing would be stronger the more mass a PBH has, or the more abundant the PBHs are in the galactic halo. We can’t see the black holes themselves, of course, but we can see the increased brightness of the quasars.

Working with this assumption, a team of astronomers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias examined the micro-lensing effect on quasars to estimate the numbers of primordial black holes of intermediate mass in galaxies.

“The black holes whose merging was detected by LIGO were probably formed by the collapse of stars, and were not primordial black holes.” -Evencio Mediavilla

The study looked at 24 quasars that are gravitationally lensed, and the results show that it is normal stars like our Sun that cause the micro-lensing effect on distant quasars. That rules out the existence of a large population of PBHs in the galactic halo. “This study implies “says Evencio Mediavilla, “that it is not at all probable that black holes with masses between 10 and 100 times the mass of the Sun make up a significant fraction of the dark matter”. For that reason the black holes whose merging was detected by LIGO were probably formed by the collapse of stars, and were not primordial black holes”.

Depending on you perspective, that either answers some of our questions about dark matter, or only deepens the mystery.

We may have to wait a long time before we know exactly what dark matter is. But the new telescopes being built around the world, like the European Extremely Large Telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, promise to deepen our understanding of how dark matter behaves, and how it shapes the Universe.

It’s only a matter of time before the mystery of dark matter is solved.

October 4, 2016October 5, 2016 by Fraser Cain

What Happens When Black Holes Collide?

The sign of a truly great scientific theory is by the outcomes it predicts when you run experiments or perform observations. And one of the greatest theories ever proposed was the concept of Relativity, described by Albert Einstein in the beginning of the 20th century.

In addition to helping us understand that light is the ultimate speed limit of the Universe, Einstein described gravity itself as a warping of spacetime.

He did more than just provide a bunch of elaborate new explanations for the Universe, he proposed a series of tests that could be done to find out if his theories were correct.

One test, for example, completely explained why Mercury’s orbit didn’t match the predictions made by Newton. Other predictions could be tested with the scientific instruments of the day, like measuring time dilation with fast moving clocks.

Since gravity is actually a distortion of spacetime, Einstein predicted that massive objects moving through spacetime should generate ripples, like waves moving through the ocean.

The more massive the object, the more it distorts spacetime. Credit: LIGO/T. Pyle

Just by walking around, you leave a wake of gravitational waves that compress and expand space around you. However, these waves are incredibly tiny. Only the most energetic events in the entire Universe can produce waves we can detect.

It took over 100 years to finally be proven true, the direct detection of gravitational waves. In February, 2016, physicists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO announced the collision of two massive black holes more than a billion light-years away.

Any size of black hole can collide. Plain old stellar mass black holes or supermassive black holes. Same process, just on a completely different scale.

Colliding black holes. Credit: LIGO/A. Simonnet

Let’s start with the stellar mass black holes. These, of course, form when a star with many times the mass of our Sun dies in a supernova. Just like regular stars, these massive stars can be in binary systems.

Imagine a stellar nebula where a pair of binary stars form. But unlike the Sun, each of these are monsters with many times the mass of the Sun, putting out thousands of times as much energy. The two stars will orbit one another for just a few million years, and then one will detonate as a supernova. Now you’ll have a massive star orbiting a black hole. And then the second star explodes, and now you have two black holes orbiting around each other.

As the black holes zip around one another, they radiate gravitational waves which causes their orbit to decay. This is kind of mind-bending, actually. The black holes convert their momentum into gravitational waves.

As their angular momentum decreases, they spiral inward until they actually collide. What should be one of the most energetic explosions in the known Universe is completely dark and silent, because nothing can escape a black hole. No radiation, no light, no particles, no screams, nothing. And if you mash two black holes together, you just get a more massive black hole.

The gravitational waves ripple out from this momentous collision like waves through the ocean, and it’s detectable across more than a billion light-years.

Arial view of LIGO Livingston. (Image credit: The LIGO Scientific Collaboration). — Arial view of LIGO Livingston. Credit: The LIGO Scientific Collaboration

This is exactly what happened earlier this year with the announcement from LIGO. This sensitive instrument detected the gravitational waves generated when two black holes with 30 solar masses collided about 1.3 billion light-years away.

This wasn’t a one-time event either, they detected another collision with two other stellar mass black holes.

Regular stellar mass black holes aren’t the only ones that can collide. Supermassive black holes can collide too.

From what we can tell, there’s a supermassive black hole at the heart of pretty much every galaxy in the Universe. The one in the Milky Way is more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun, and the one at the heart of Andromeda is thought to be 110 to 230 million times the mass of the Sun.

In a few billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda are going to collide, and begin the process of merging together. Unless the Milky Way’s black hole gets kicked off into deep space, the two black holes are going to end up orbiting one another.

Just with the stellar mass black holes, they’re going to radiate away angular momentum in the form of gravitational waves, and spiral closer and closer together. Some point, in the distant future, the two black holes will merge into an even more supermassive black hole.

View of Milkdromeda from Earth "shortly" after the merger, around 3.85-3.9 billion years from now Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI), T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger — View of Milkdromeda from Earth “shortly” after the merger, around 3.85-3.9 billion years from now. Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI), T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger

The Milky Way and Andromeda will merge into Milkdromeda, and over the future billions of years, will continue to gather up new galaxies, extract their black holes and mashing them into the collective.

Black holes can absolutely collide. Einstein predicted the gravitational waves this would generate, and now LIGO has observed them for the first time. As better tools are developed, we should learn more and more about these extreme events.

September 29, 2016October 5, 2016 by Matt Williams

The 2016 Nobel Prize In Physics: It’s Complicated

This year's Nobel Prize in physics highlights the complications of awarding breakthrough achievements. Credit: nobelprize.org

Update: This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to David J. Thouless (University of Washington), F. Duncan M. Haldane (Princeton University), and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University for “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”. One half of the prize was awarded to Thouless while the other half was jointly awarded to Haldane and Kosterlitz.

The Nobel Prize in physics is a coveted award. Every year, the prize is bestowed upon the individual who is deemed to have made the greatest contribution to the field of physics during the preceding year. And this year, the groundbreaking discovery of gravitational waves is anticipated to be the main focus.

This discovery, which was announced on February 11th, 2016, was made possible thanks to the development of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). As such, it is expected that the three scientists that are most responsible for the invention of the technology will receive the Nobel Prize for their work. However, there are those in the scientific community who feel that another scientist – Barry Barish – should also be recognized.

But first, some background is needed to help put all this into perspective. For starers, gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of spacetime that are generated by certain gravitational interactions and which propagate at the speed of light. The existence of such waves has been postulated since the late 19th century.

LIGO's two facilities, located in . Credit: ligo.caltech.edu — *LIGO’s two observatories, the located in Livingston, Louisiana; and Hanford, Washington. Credit: ligo.caltech.edu*

However, it was not until the late 20th century, thanks in large part to Einstein and his theory of General Relativity, that gravitational-wave research began to emerge as a branch of astronomy. Since the 1960s, various gravitational-wave detectors have been built, which includes the LIGO observatory.

Founded as a Caltech/MIT project, LIGO was officially approved by the National Science Board (NSF) in 1984. A decade later, construction began on the facility’s two locations – in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana. By 2002, it began to obtain data, and work began on improving its original detectors in 2008 (known as the Advanced LIGO Project).

The credit for the creation of LIGO goes to three scientists, which includes Rainer Weiss, a professor of physics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Ronald Drever, an experimental physics who was professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology and a professor at Glasgow University; and Kip Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech.

In 1967 and 68, Weiss and Thorne initiated efforts to construct prototype detectors, and produced theoretical work to prove that gravitational waves could be successfully analyzed. By the 1970s, using different methods, Weiss and Denver both succeeded in building detectors. In the coming years, all three men remained pivotal and influential, helping to make gravitational astronomy a legitimate field of research.

A bird's eye view of LIGO Hanford's laser and vacuum equipment area (LVEA). The LVEA houses the pre-stabilized laser, beam splitter, input test masses, and other equipment. Credit: ligo.caltech.edu — *LIGO Hanford’s laser and vacuum equipment area (LVEA), which houses the pre-stabilized laser, beam splitter, input test masses, and other equipment. Credit: ligo.caltech.edu*

However, it has been argued that without Barish – a particle physicist at Caltech – the discovery would never have been made. Having become the Principal Investigator of LIGO in 1994, he inherited the project at a very crucial time. It had begun funding a decade prior, but coordinating the work of Wiess, Thorne and Drever (from MIT, Caltech and the University of Glasgow, respectively) proved difficult.

As such, it was decided that a single director was needed. Between 1987 and 1994, Rochus Vogt – a professor emeritus of Physics at Caltech – was appointed by the NSF to fill this role. While Vogt brought the initial team together and helped to get the construction of the project approved, he proved difficult when it came to dealing with bureaucracy and documenting his researchers progress.

As such, between 1989 through 1994, LIGO failed to progress technically and organizationally, and had trouble acquiring funding as well. By 1994, Caltech eased Vogt out of his position and appointed Barish to the position of director. Barish got to work quickly, making significant changes to the way LIGO was administered, expanding the research team, and developing a detailed work plan for the NSF.

Barish was also responsible for expanding LIGO beyond its Caltech and MIT constraints. This he did through the creation of the independent LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), which gave access to outside researchers and institutions. This was instrumental in creating crucial partnerships, which included the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Max Planck Society of Germany, and the Australian Research Council.

Artist's impression of how massive bodies (like our Sun) distort space time. Credit: T. Pyle/Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab — *Artist’s impression of how massive bodies (like our Sun) distort space time. Such bodies also create gravity waves when they accelerate through space and time. Credit: T. Pyle/Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab*

By 1999, construction had wrapped up on the LIGO observatories, and by 2002, they began taking their first bits of data. By 2004, the funding and groundwork was laid for the next phase of LIGO development, which involved a multi-year shut-down while the detectors were replaced with improved “Advanced LIGO” versions.

All of this was made possible by Barish, who retired in 2005 to head up other projects. Thanks to his sweeping reforms, LIGO got to work after an abortive start, began to produce data, procured funding, crucial partnerships, and now has more than 1000 collaborators worldwide, thanks to the LSC program he established.

Little wonder then why some scientists think the Nobel Prize should be split four-ways, awarding the three scientists who conceived of LIGO and the one scientist who made it happen. And as Barish himself was quoted as saying by Science:

“I think there’s a bit of truth that LIGO wouldn’t be here if I didn’t do it, so I don’t think I’m undeserving. If they wait a year and give it to these three guys, at least I’ll feel that they thought about it,” he says. “If they decide [to give it to them] this October, I’ll have more bad feelings because they won’t have done their homework.”

*The approximate locations of the two gravitational-wave events detected so far by LIGO are shown on this sky map of the southern hemisphere. . Credit: LIGO/Axel Mellinger*

However, there is good reason to believe that the award will ultimately be split three ways, leaving Barish out. For instance, Weiss, Drever, and Thorne have been honored three times already this year for their work on LIGO. This has included the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, and Kavli Prize in Astrophysics.

What’s more, in the past, the Nobel Prize in physics has tended to be awarded to those responsible for the intellectual contributions leading to a major breakthrough, rather than to those who did the leg work. Out of the last six Prizes issued (between 2010 and 2015), five have been awarded for the development of experimental methods, observational studies, and theoretical discoveries.

Only one award was given for a technical development. This was the case in 2014 where the award was given jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for “the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources”.

Basically, the Nobel Prize is a complicated matter. Every year, it is awarded to those who made a considerable contribution to science, or were responsible for a major breakthrough. But contributions and breakthroughs are perhaps a bit relative. Whom we choose to honor, and for what, can also be seen as an indication of what is valued most in the scientific community.

In the end, this year’s award may serve to highlight how significant contributions do not just entail the development of new ideas and methods, but also in bringing them to fruition.

Further Reading: Science, LIGO, Nobelprize.org