Far out cosmology: LIGO finds waves? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 11, 2016, 18:21 (3206 days ago) @ David Turell

Yes, waves found:-http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361?WT.mc_id=EMI_NA_1602_NEWSGRAVWAVESFOUND_PORTFOLIO&spMailingID=50678145&spUserID=MTc2NjI2NDU0MwS2&spJobID=861382486&spReportId=ODYxMzgyNDg2S0-"One hundred years after Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, scientists have finally spotted these elusive ripples in space-time.-"In a highly anticipated announcement, physicists with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) revealed on 11 February that their twin detectors have heard the gravitational 'ringing' produced by the collision of two black holes about 400 megaparsecs (1.3 billion light-years) from Earth.-***-"One black hole was about 36 times the mass of the Sun, and the other was about 29 solar masses. As they spiralled inexorably into one another, they merged into a single, more-massive gravitational sink in space-time that weighed 62 solar masses, the LIGO team estimates.-“'These amazing observations are the confirmation of a lot of theoretical work, including Einstein's general theory of relativity, which predicts gravitational waves,” says physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge, UK. Hawking noted that Einstein himself never believed in black holes.-"This is the first black-hole merger that scientists have observed. The violent event temporarily radiated more energy — in the form of gravitational waves — than all the stars in the observable Universe emitted as light in the same amount of time."-Matt Strassler explains the significance:-http://profmattstrassler.com/2016/02/11/advance-thoughts-on-ligo/-" We are witnessing the birth of an entirely new field of science: gravitational-wave astronomy. This type of astronomy is complementary to the many other methods we have of “looking” at the universe. What's great about gravitational wave astronomy is that although dramatic events can occur in the universe without leaving a signal visible to the eye, and even without creating any electromagnetic waves at all, nothing violent can happen in the universe without making waves in space-time. Every object creates gravity, through the curvature of space-time, and every object feels gravity too. You can try to hide in the shadows, but there's no hiding from gravity.-***-" Experts were pretty certain that mergers of black holes of this size happen on a fairly regular basis — gravitational wave astronomy might soon show us something completely unanticipated. Perhaps it will teach us surprising facts about the numbers or properties of black holes, neutron stars, or other massive objects. Perhaps it will help us solve some existing mysteries, such as those of gamma-ray bursts. Or perhaps it will reveal currently unsuspected cataclysmic events that may have occurred somewhere in our universe's past."-Comment: Einstein's spacetime fully validated!