Posted on 08/27/2017 12:54:02 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Astrophysicists may have detected gravitational waves last week from the collision of two neutron stars in a distant galaxy — and telescopes trained on the same region might also have spotted the event.
Rumours to that effect are spreading fast online, much to researchers’ excitement. Such a detection could mark a new era of astronomy: one in which phenomena are both seen by conventional telescopes and ‘heard’ as vibrations in the fabric of space-time. “It would be an incredible advance in our understanding,” says Stuart Shapiro, an astrophysicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Scientists who work with gravitational-wave detectors won’t comment on the gossip because the data is still under analysis. Public records show that telescopes around the world have been looking at the same galaxy since last week, but astronomers caution that they could have been picking up signals from an unrelated source.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Louisiana and Washington state has three times detected gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time — emerging from colliding black holes. But scientists have been hoping to detect ripples from another cosmic cataclysm, such as the merger of neutron stars, remnants of large stars that exploded but were not massive enough to collapse into a black hole. Such an event should also emit radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum — from radio waves to γ-rays — which telescopes might be able to pick up.
On 18 August, astronomer J. Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas at Austin began the public rumour mill when he tweeted, “New LIGO. Source with optical counterpart. Blow your sox off!” An hour later, astronomer Peter Yoachim of the University of Washington in Seattle tweeted that LIGO had seen a signal with an optical counterpart...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Burkhard Heim’s Theory says that gravitational waves travel at 4/3 c, i.e. faster than light.
I wonder how long until we get our first official gravity-wave sexual gender claimer?
Bookmark
With “gravitational wave sighting” in the title, I half expected to see a picture of Rosie O’Donnell waving when I opened the thread.
So... pay the mortgage this month, or end of the world?
Asking for a friend...
Falsified
Both!
Testing a new star drive is such tedious work what with the neighbors watching and all ...
Interesting. The big question is how accurate were the observations.
Interesting. Newton's law states that ‘physical’ interactions propagate at infinite speed. As such two bodies of mass encountering one another for the first time should instantaneously affect one another. If Heim, or any of the others who have theorized gravitational waves, are correct in their theory that gravitational waves travel at a finite speed, this should be testable. There should be a measurable delay in the onset of the effects of bodies of mass initially encountering one another.
For fatties?
With all the witchcraft going on in the quantum world, sub-dimension, particle entanglement, I wouldnt be surprised that the propagation is instantaneous.
It was, in fact, the discovery of these new gravity waves which led me to my invention of time travel 5 years from last May.
Tell everyone that I’m sorry. I had kimchi and beer last night. I’m sure this morning I registered on the Richter scale.
5.56mm
SALLY: Who are you?
DOCTOR: I’m a time traveller. Or I was. I’m stuck in 1969.
SALLY: 1969, that’s where you’re talking from?
DOCTOR [on screen]: Afraid so.
SALLY: But you’re replying to me. You can’t know exactly what I’m going to say, forty years before I say it.
DOCTOR [on screen]: Thirty eight.
LARRY: I’m getting this down. I’m writing in your bits.
SALLY: How? How is this possible? Tell me.
DOCTOR [on screen]: People don’t understand time. It’s not what you think it is.
SALLY: Then what is it?
DOCTOR [on screen]: People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
SALLY: Yeah, I’ve seen this bit before. You said that sentence got away from you.
DOCTOR [on screen]: It got away from me, yeah.
What is that from? I love the timey-wimey stuff.
Can we wait for the Dara please?
Instinctively I am of the opinion that they are even faster than that. Gravity is something that either is or isn’t.
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