Scientists at Washington’s National Science Foundation and Moscow State
University have confirmed the discovery of Albert Einstein’s
gravitational waves. The breakthrough, possibly the biggest in physics
in a century, could be the key to new understanding of the universe.
Recent
rumors of the success in detecting gravitational waves, or as some
scientists put it "very weak spacetime wiggles which propagate at the
speed of light" were officially confirmed Thursday.
"Ladies and
gentlemen! We have detected gravitational waves, we did it!," LIGO
laboratory executive director David Reitze announced in Washington.
"These
gravitational waves were produced by two colliding black holes, [that]
came together, merged and formed a single black hole about 1.3 billion
years ago," Reitze said.
These ripples in the fabric of spacetime
are one of the most important variables in Einstein's theory of
relativity and it took astronomers decades to detect them, although they
were pretty sure that gravitational waves existed.
The discovery
has been made with the use of the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) - a system of two detectors
constructed to spot tiny vibrations from passing gravitational waves.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, LIGO's identical detectors
are located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.
The
observatories, which are "the most precise measuring device ever
built," recorded a signal on September 14, 2015, "nearly
simultaneously," and the signal "had a very specific characteristic,"
the laboratories' director said.
"As time went forward, the
frequency went up," he explained, adding that it took scientists months
of careful checking and analysis to confirm that what had been
discovered was exactly gravitational waves.
https://www.rt.com/news/332162-gravitational-waves-discovery-announcement/
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