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The observation of gravitational waves in 2015 isn’t an end point for the astronomers working on the project, this confirmation hopefully will help expand knowledge of the wider universe.

by Dr Heather Doran

Famously, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 but their detection in 2015 wasn’t the first proof of their existence. This was demonstrated in the 1980s when Joseph Taylor Jr and Joel M. Weisberg found that the orbit of a pulsar around a neutron star shrank over time due to the release of energy in the form of gravitational waves. The 2015 detection of gravitational waves was the result of decades of work by multiple research groups across the world brought together under the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration to achieve the ultimate proof, detection of the waves as they travel through space.

Great enhancements in the sensitivity of detection instruments finally gave scientists a reading they could confirm as being gravitational waves. In order to be sure that what was detected was gravitational waves, and not background interference, the waves needed to be detected by two LIGO detectors within the time it was theorised for the wave to travel between them. The two qualifying readings were detected at the Livingston and Hanford laboratories. The detection also coincided with an observed astrophysical event, the merger of two massive black holes 1.3 million light years away, confirming that the detection was gravitational waves.

The ability to detect gravitational waves gives scientists a new method of investigating the universe around us. We can only confirm what we can detect and previously this was limited to the detection of electromagnetic radiation, from low frequency radio waves, through to visible light and high frequency gamma rays. They told us about the visible Universe around us and have given us clues to other aspects of the Universe through monitoring how this radiation is interfered with as it travels, one example being how detectable material moves around black holes. The gravitational waves detection isn’t only a detection of gravitational waves but also the first direct observation of a black hole. The exciting part is that gravitational waves travel through the Universe without interfering with other matter, unlike electromagnetic radiation, therefore opening up a new observable gravitational-wave Universe and giving scientists a new tool with which to investigate the previously invisible.

The LIGO website has some fantastic sources,  materials and detailed explanations of all the science relating to gravitational waves.

photo credit: LIGO

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