gravitational wave
-
Scientists Propose New Way to Find Aliens: Detect Their Failing Warp Drives
Speculative new research outlines a method for detecting extraterrestrial civilizations: by catching the gravitational waves produced by the collapse, or failure, of their warp drives. Sounds wild, but the concept is grounded in the principles of Einstein’s general relativity. Warp drives, inspired by Albert Einstein’s grasp of cosmological physics, were first mathematically modeled by physicist…
-
Hell Yeah, We’re Getting a Space-Based Gravitational Wave Observatory
Stay calm, everybody stay calm. But it’s finally happening: The European Space Agency is committing itself to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a gravitational wave observatory that will study some of the universe’s most enigmatic phenomena. On Thursday, LISA was formally adopted, meaning that ESA “recognises that the mission concept and technology are sufficiently…
-
Behold, Our Galaxy Visualised in Gravitational Waves
No space-based gravitational wave observatory exists…yet. But that hasn’t stopped a team of astronomers from demonstrating how the gravitational universe might look, using simulated data to create a “synthetic gravitational sky.” Gravitational waves are perturbations in spacetime that were predicted by Einstein in his theory of general relativity; as Einstein described them, the waves are…
-
Breakthrough Gravitational Wave Findings Suggest Supermassive Black Holes Are Constantly Warping Spacetime
Astronomers and astrophysicists at five different pulsar timing array collaborations today announced data that strongly suggests the presence of a gravitational wave background: a constant murmur of low-frequency ripples in spacetime that emanates from some of the universe’s most exotic objects.