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This year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three leading astrophysicists for the recent detection of gravitational waves.
Gravitational waves are distortions in space-time caused by accelerating masses (like how accelerating charges produce electromagnetic waves). These waves travel at the speed of light and stretch space itself, varying the distance between objects.
Since gravity is extremely weak compared to electromagnetism and the wave amplitude decreases with the inverse square of the distance, detecting this distortion from many light years away is extremely difficult. The masses involved have to be enormous, i.e. black holes merging or neutron stars colliding.
The advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is capable of detecting a change in distance of ~1/10,000th of the size of a proton (10^-19 metres) along two perpendicular 4km arms!
Now LIGO have managed to detect two neutron stars that collided a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Gravitational waves are distortions in space-time caused by accelerating masses (like how accelerating charges produce electromagnetic waves). These waves travel at the speed of light and stretch space itself, varying the distance between objects.
Since gravity is extremely weak compared to electromagnetism and the wave amplitude decreases with the inverse square of the distance, detecting this distortion from many light years away is extremely difficult. The masses involved have to be enormous, i.e. black holes merging or neutron stars colliding.
The advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is capable of detecting a change in distance of ~1/10,000th of the size of a proton (10^-19 metres) along two perpendicular 4km arms!
Now LIGO have managed to detect two neutron stars that collided a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...