What is the future of LIGO?
LIGO is also planning to build another observatory in India, to turn online in the mid-2020s. Further ahead, the European Space Agency plans to launch the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) in 2034, which should detect gravitational waves of low frequencies that are undetectable on Earth due to noise.
Whats the big deal about gravitational waves?
Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that ripples in space time will be produced by massive objects when they change shape in time — for example, when neutron stars or black holes collide. Those ripples, called gravitational waves, will propagate through space time at the speed of light.
What gravitational waves mean for physics?
Gravitational waves are disturbances in the curvature of spacetime, generated by accelerated masses, that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. Gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation.
Why do we think that gravitational waves really exist?
Why do we think that gravitational waves really exist? We have observed orbiting objects that are losing precisely the amount of energy we expect them t be losing to gravitational waves.
Why LIGO is preferred laser?
While laser diodes are the kind of devices that one finds in everyday laser pointers, at 4 watts, LIGO’s is 800 times more powerful than most off-the-shelf laser pointers. …
What’s new in gravitational-wave astronomy?
The field of gravitational-wave astronomy is just starting, and this Roadmap of future developments surveys the potential for growth in bandwidth and sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors, and discusses the science results anticipated to come from upcoming instruments.
What can we learn from gravitational-wave observations?
Gravitational-wave observations of binary black hole and neutron star mergers by LIGO and Virgo in the past five years have opened a completely new window on the Universe. The gravitational-wave spectrum, extending from attohertz to kilohertz frequencies, provides a fertile ground for exploring many fundamental questions in physics and astronomy.
What’s new in ground-based astronomy?
Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, two future ground-based observatories now under development for the 2030s, are pursuing new technologies to achieve a tenfold increase increase in sensitivity to study compact object evolution to the beginning of the star formation era. The past five years have witnessed a revolution in astronomy.
Can we detect gravitational waves from past mergers of super-massive black holes?
Pulsar timing arrays currently probe the nanohertz to microhertz frequency band to detect gravitational-wave remnants from past mergers of super-massive black holes.