Three projects - the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array in Australia, NANOGrav in North America and the European Pulsar Timing Array in Europe - are monitoring dozens of pulsars for tempo changes that can reveal not only single collisions but the cacophony of gargantuan black holes smashing together throughout the universe. As a gravitational wave squeezes and stretches the space between Earth and a pulsar, the beat appears to quicken and diminish. These rapidly spinning neutron stars (the cores left behind after a massive star explodes) send out steady pulses of radio waves. To pick up the relatively low-frequency hum of colliding supermassive black holes, researchers are turning to pulsars. In anticipation of eLISA, ESA recently launched the LISA Pathfinder, a mission to test technologies needed for the full-fledged space-based gravitational wave detector. Researchers have been lobbying the European Space Agency to put a LIGO-like detector in space - the Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna - sometime in the 2030s. Neither do you have to deal with pesky Earth-based phenomena like seismic tremors. A third LIGO detector, this one in India, is scheduled to join the search in 2019. GEO600, near Hannover, Germany, has been the only interferometer running for the past several years while Virgo and LIGO underwent renovations. The Virgo detector, near Pisa, Italy, is being upgraded and will team up with LIGO later this year. Ground-based interferometersĪ couple of other detectors similar to LIGO are in Europe. Here are a few other ongoing and future projects. However, alternative explanations could involve intriguing new physics related to the early stages of the universe, near the Big bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago.LIGO isn’t the only game in town when it comes to hunting for gravitational waves. These frequencies are significantly smaller, around 10-12 orders of magnitude, compared to those detected by LIGO, and they have wavelengths spanning light years.” He also added, “The most straightforward explanation for these gravitational waves involves a collection of supermassive black hole pairs orbiting each other in our cosmic neighbourhood. As these waves travel through space, they physically stretch and compress the fabric of space-time itself.” He said, “We now have compelling evidence of gravitational wave hum in a new frequency range. He told Reuters, “Gravitational waves are generated by astronomically dense objects in our universe, typically in orbital motion around each other. Jeff Hazbaun is an astrophysicist from Oregon State University. What Jeff Hazbaun has to say about Gravitational waves? This discovery has been made about seven years after initial detection of gravitational waves generated by a pair of distant black holes (black holes are objects so dense with gravity that even light is unable to escape them. Scientists have discovered that gravitational waves existing in the universe sound similar to hum of large gatherings that are common in cricket, football and tennis stadium or in music concerts or even in auditoriums. On TV hum sound is quiet audible but individual voices are simply not distinguishable. If you have watched cricket or football match being held in jam packed stadiums on TV then you would have definitely experienced the said hum of large gatherings. Latest report is based on the data collected by NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center, comprising over 190 scientists from US and Canada.Įverybody has heard the hum of large gatherings at some point of time. The recent research relied heavily on pulsars (highly dense remnants of exploded stars spinning at extraordinary speeds). Space is filled with these waves primarily originating from pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling and merging together, indicates the research.Įinstein talked about existence of gravitational waves way back in 1916 but these waves were directly detected by scientists for the first time only in 2016, although scientists had indirect evidence to rely on since 1970s. Related report published today says that astrophysicists have been able to hear low frequency gravitational waves that creates universe permeating cosmic background hum. This groundbreaking discovery has been made by an international group of scientists. Background hum of the universe discovered by astronomers is creation of gravitational waves first envisioned by Einstein. Finally astronomers have made a discovery confirming existence of gravitational waves. A century ago Albert Einstein had envisioned gravitational waves.
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