Scientists Discover More Gravitational Waves

Scientists discovered a second burst of gravitational waves sweeping through the Earth attributed to small black hole merger.

22:17 16 June 2016

Scientists have collected a second burst of gravitational waves on Christmas Day at Advanced LIGO laboratories, which also made the historic first detection in September last year.

 

While both sets of waves are attributed to coalescing black holes, the last one is ascribed to smaller black hole merger. According to the report published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the two objects involved had masses that were 14 and eight times bigger than the Sun. The scientists said that the union resulted in pure energy to space that is equivalent to the mass of one star of Sun size.

 

This energy was sensed in the laser interferometres of the LIGO labs in Louisiana, Hanford and Livingstone.

 

UK collaboration member Prof Bernard Schutz of Cardiff University said that the second detection is a proof that the first one was not just an isolated event.

 

"It shows the first event wasn't just a fluke. It shows that the Universe is filled with black holes spiralling in together and merging and giving off these huge bursts of gravitational waves quite regularly. It's a violent Universe.”