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“It is remarkable, it really is,” he kept repeating Thursday Jim Hough, a hunter of gravitational waves from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
This scientific attended the press conference at the National press Club in Washington to witness the ad that finally reported on the last observation remained to be done of the theories of relativity Albert Einstein.
These waves that show how objects make the spacetime curve came from the merger of two black holes of a “medium-sized”.
Maybe on paper this discovery seems simple. But when you try to imagine the scenario described, when you go back.
Imagine two monstrous black holes slowing each other in space .
one has a mass about 35 times that of our sun, the other is about 30 times.
At the time just before merge, rotate among them dozens of times per second.
And then come together to become one, as with soap bubbles.
E = mc2
David Reitze, executive director of Advanced Observatory Laser Interferometry Gravitational Wave, known as LIGO, described the event:
“Think of something about 150 km in diameter, with a mass 30 times that of the Sun, and aceléralo to half the speed of light. Now think of another object that is 35 times the mass of the Sun and aceléralo at half speed light, and then colisiónalos “.
” This is what we saw here, “he added. “It’s amazing.”
At the time of bonding, holes radiate pure energy in the form of gravitational waves, and lose the equivalent of three times the mass of our Sun .
energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, everybody knows the equation, here seen in action.
it is this tremendous release of energy and resulting time space warp, which LIGO laboratories could detect, even when this happened 1,300 million light years from Earth.
1,000 specialists, 80 centers and 15 countries
a thousand researchers from 80 institutions in 15 countries are celebrating the moment. And it’s easy to see the reason for this excitement was rising to the announcement this week.
Detection of merging black holes was made on 14 September at 9:50:45 GMT .
laser interferometers handled by LIGO had just become operational after several years of reforms to increase its sensitivity.
they were not even in formal mode of scientific observation .
the specialists were still checking them when receiving the signal detectors, a disturbance equivalent to giving someone a gentle nudge to an ultra quiet at fractions of the width of a proton, the particle in the heart of every atom equipment.
the first was the laboratory detect LIGO Livingston, Louisiana.
a 3,000 kilometers away, Hanford observatory in Washington state, received this blow . about 7 milliseconds later
the experts are pretty sure the distance from the event, not so much with the location; think this merger of black holes could occur in the southern sky.
Waves or holes?
Somehow it is difficult to know should focus one.
Is the historical detection waves or astrophysical data they represent?
This is the first direct observation of the holes black, black holes of this size and how were orbiting each other until joined .
and all the numbers match beautifully with the equations of Einstein.
as predicted, the waves radiate to the speed of light, meaning that the graviton, the particle assumed to be responsible for the gravitational transmission, no mass.
“While the equations Einstein is known for its complicity, are the simplest that could be created, taking into account all the constraints that had to meet “, said Bernie Schutz, of Cardiff university in Wales.
” it remarkable that nature did not add even more complexity. and the equations are what they are, and they are beautiful. “
Obviously now there needs to be more detections.
scientists believe that a few weeks ago may have seen a much smaller event that requires further study .
far from Earth
In the months of summer, laboratories LIGO return to work after a period of inactivity.
When this happens, a third laboratory in Italy known as Virgo, will join them.
in the future observatories were also added in India and Japan.
With all these “ears in the cosmos” it should be easier to identify exactly the place where these events occur.
the European Space Agency is developing an observatory of gravitational waves to orbit far from Earth, which are expected to release in 2030 .
currently it is not the great mission that everyone had hoped, because a few years ago the US space agency got into trouble on their funding and abandoned the project.
that is why that the scale of the mission had to be redesigned and now many expect that this milestone makes the NASA join again.
“the commitment made, build in Europe that Americans do not have to contribute was not the best they could do for science As a result, many of us are trying to restore this collaboration “
”
said Rai Weiss of MIT. “. it’s just going to space to measure gravitational waves of bigger events, away from the noisy surface of the Earth, the researchers expect to see small cracks that are beginning to emerge from those glorious Einstein equations .
Who gets the prize?
Sometimes how are you, it is inevitable that the debate lean Nobel prizes.
No one doubts that Thursday’s announcement deserves one ; The debate, as always, is about who should receive.
Obvious candidates include US Kip Thorne, Scottish and German Ron Drever Rai Weiss .
they are considered the fathers of LIGO, to propose the concept of these laboratories in the 80s.
But for Jim Hough, who began work on gravitational waves during his postgraduate late 70s, would be appropriate if some of that glory goes to the great collaboration of researchers LIGO who made what is now.
in the list of authors of the study published in the Physical Review Letters are 1,004 authors .
“the Nobel committee had to give the prize to own hadron collider for having detected the Higgs boson (they gave the British Peter Higgs for his theory),” said Hough.
“All these researchers worked very hard and should have been rewarded for it.”
“But it is very likely to see the same thing happen with gravitational waves, which in my view is a great pity” .
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