For the First Time, Scientists See Gravitational Waves Associated with Black Holes

For the first time, gravitational waves produced by black holes and other massive space objects traveling through the universe have reportedly been seen by scientists. The observation was made by a collaboration of international scientists utilizing radio telescopes in Australia, China, India, Europe, and North America. Scientist Albert Einstein first postulated the presence of gravitational waves more than a century ago as a component of his General Theory of Relativity. According to Einstein’s theory, space and time curves and cause gravity.

According to scientific theory, gravitational waves push against and stretch everything they pass through as they move across space. However, it has taken years for academics to uncover conclusive proof of the waves. In the 1970s, by observing the speed of two colliding stars, scientists discovered indirect evidence. This work was recognized with a 1993 Physics Nobel Prize. After that, in 2016, scientists declared they had found the first concrete proof of gravitational waves. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, is an American research effort that provided the proof for this claim. About 1.3 billion light years from Earth, two black holes collided, producing a gravitational wave that was detected by the LIGO project using ground-based observatory instruments.

The scientists claimed to have successfully found these signals by analyzing data from the NANOGrav project spanning roughly 15 years. This project has been looking for low-frequency gravitational waves for a long time using telescopes located all around North America. The Astrophysical Journal of Letters published an article containing the data lately. Scientists used a variety of radio telescopes to target pulsars, or dead stars, for their studies. As the pulsars revolve in space, they emit radio wave signals. Scientists can precisely forecast when these signals will arrive on Earth because of their remarkable predictability. According to NANOGrav member Sarah Vigeland, the pulsars resemble “a perfectly regular clock ticking away far out in space.”