Black Hole Merger And Gravitational Waves
by Science Photo Library
Title
Black Hole Merger And Gravitational Waves
Artist
Science Photo Library
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Illustration of the merger of two black holes (centre) causing gravitational waves (spiralling lines). Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Gravity is the distortion of spacetime by mass, and changes in this distortion travel in waves at the speed of light. The effect is most pronounced where extremely massive objects are subject to extremely high acceleration. This is seen, for instance, where black holes or neutron stars are in a close orbit such as this. In February 2016, gravitational waves were detected for the first time, 100 years after Einstein's prediction. The waves emanated from the collision of two black holes, of 36 and 29 solar masses, some 1.3 billion light years away. The waves were extremely faint by the time they arrived at Earth, where they were detected by the two LIGO detectors in the USA.
Uploaded
July 24th, 2016
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