Gravitational waves, the disturbances in the fabric of space-time predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, are permeating the universe at low frequencies, creating a cosmic background hum, according to evidence unveiled by scientists.
These gravitational waves oscillate over years or longer and appear to originate primarily from pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling together prior to merging, according to new research.
“Gravitational waves are created by astronomically dense objects in our universe, usually in orbit around each other. The gravitational waves actually stretch and compress space-time itself as they travel through the universe,” stated Oregon State University astrophysicist Jeff Hazboun, a member of the scientific collaboration that carried out the research and lead author of one of the papers describing the findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Einstein postulated the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 as an extension of his ground-breaking general theory of relativity, which described gravity as the warping of space and time by matter.
Before their discovery in 2016, scientists had only discovered indirect evidence of their existence, dating back to the 1970s. Pulsars, the cores of exploded stars that rotate at the speed of a kitchen blender, were crucial to the new research. 68 pulsars were utilized to acquire the evidence.
Hazboun said –
“We see the passage of the gravitational waves as changes in the arrival time of pulses from an array of pulsars in our galaxy.”
The gravitational wave signal was detected in data collected over the course of 15 years by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center (PFC), a collaboration of over 190 scientists from the United States and Canada.
The researchers compared the background of gravitational waves to hear the murmur of a large group of people conversing at a party without being able to distinguish individual voices.
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Astronomers have relied on the study of light to learn more about the universe for a long time, but this method is limited because it does not provide insight into many aspects of the universe. Gravitational waves and neutrinos, which are invisible subatomic particles, permit a more thorough examination of the universe.
Other news outlets have also officially publicized the news on Twitter –
Scientists unveiled evidence that gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, are permeating the universe at low frequencies, creating a cosmic background hum https://t.co/06F2zyp20S pic.twitter.com/GNxxcGFCck
β Reuters (@Reuters) June 29, 2023
The discovery was made seven years after the first detection of gravitational waves emitted by two distant black holes – objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape – was announced. Black holes and other massive object motion can generate gravitational waves. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was used in this study.
Hazboun said –
“We have solid evidence for a hum of gravitational waves in a new band of the gravitational wave spectrum. These frequencies are 10-12 orders of magnitude smaller than those detected by LIGO, and have wavelengths light years long.”
By referring to the event that marked the origin of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago, Hazboun added –
“The most vanilla explanation of these gravitational waves is an ensemble of supermassive black hole binaries (black holes orbiting each other) in our cosmic neighborhood. Other explanations include interesting new physics from near the Big Bang.”
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