Gravitation, something we all know about, and at times even hate when we step up on that scale of ours in the morning. Gravity is the force that keeps us bound to our home, keeps us safe. It’s also such a strong force that it can make ripples in space, something Albert Einstein predicted long before it was possible to detect.

When two massive bodies collide, the gravitation created by this event is so enormous that it creates ripples in space. Like a pebble in a pond, the waves go on and on in space. As matter doesn't hinder them; the waves pass through space for eternity.

Ever since Einstein's prediction of said waves in 1916, scientists have tried to test his theory in reality. But there was no way of verifying this theory since gravitational waves are so very tiny ripples that no instrument could detect them. It was not until late 20th century that devices were even remotely capable of detecting these waves. LIGO and Vigo were created to catch these, or so they thought.

The two observatories

Today we have two observatories capable of detecting gravitational waves. One is LIGO in Pasadena California, US, the second one is Virgo in Pisa, Italy.

Both are high features of engineering, as they are built to observe the small changes in space as gravitational waves pass through the earth. These tiny differences are less than one ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton, or less than the size of a soccer ball compared with the span of the Milky Way.

The instruments consist of long tubes, approximately 4km in length, in which there are laser beams that reflect in the other end and read by sensors at the hub where it started. It is by these tiny changes in laser frequency that scientists can detect the waves of gravitation.

LIGO

In August 2002, LIGO started up in the US, as the first instrument for trying to find signs of gravitational waves. Funded by National Science Foundation while built and operated by Caltech and MIT. It consists of two observatories, LIGO Hanford Observatory and LIGO Livingston Observatory.

Both observatories where closed for upgrades in 2008, and after seven years, opened up again in 2015 as the new "Advanced LIGO".

Virgo

In 2003, Virgo was the second instrument. Virgo is a joint project by CNRS and INFN, located in Santo Stefano a Macerata, Italy.

In 2011, Virgo was also decommissioned for an upgrade, and replaced by "Advanced Virgo", completed in 2016. Now using the second generation of detection instruments as well.

The Findings

On September 18, 2015, the new upgraded and now Advanced LIGO, was set to start up the new experiments again. But already four days before that, the detectors found patterns of waves going through the array. At this time, the European station Virgo was yet still upgrading, and the signals weren't confirmed by anyone else.

But in 2017, Virgo joined in after their upgrades, and they joined in search of detecting the waves. On August 14, 2017, they both found a signal and GW170814 where observed. The first binary black hole merger detected by both stations together.

The observation was the first detection of a merger of two black holes ever, and only the fifth of gravitational waves, both jointly between the two observatories and singlehandedly as one of them have been in upgrades.

The last run ended in August 2017, as both the observatories are upgraded with even better sensors, expecting a then folded increase of sensitivity again. In 2018 there are more joint observations planned on an even more regular basis.

“This is just the beginning of observations with the network enabled by Virgo and LIGO working together. With the next observing run planned for late 2018, we can expect such detections weekly or even more often,” says David Shoemaker, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and spokesperson for the LIGO collaboration.

Radio waves came afterward, detected by the VLA (Very Large Array)

As the even of the merger created large waves of gravitation, detected by LIGO and Virgo in August, the event also sent out massive bursts of gamma rays, X-rays, and visible light. The VLA discovered the first radio waves coming from the event on September 2. The observation was the first time any astronomical object where detected with both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves.

Together with several different observational stations, the astronomers were able to detect that the radio waves that came in later than the gravitational waves meant that their theories of the event were not what they had expected.

As the radio waves were not decreasing but increasing, there was something more to this than a disc with two jet streams directed outwards. Instead, after further analyze, the astronomers were able to accurately say that the event had made an expanding cocoon, absorbing the jet energy.

Watch a quick, yet well described video, about this event
by Tim Darnell on Deep Astronomy

Left side is the predicted, jet-propelled outbursts, where radio waves would get weaker after time. Right side is the observed, and reported in September, actual event with a cocoon, which emits Z-rays and radio waves over a more extensive angle
View Larger Image

Einstein@Home - Finding new Pulsars and Waves

In 2005, the BOINC project Einstein@home started up. The project uses research data collected and enables personal computers of any kind to join in the analysis of collected data from the Arecibo Observatory and Parkes Observatory.

The project searches for both neutron stars, and new pulsars and gravitational waves.

• With data from LIGO gravitational-wave detectors, from large radio telescopes, and from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope they search for neutron stars by their pulsed radio and gamma-ray emissions.
• With data from data from the Arecibo Observatory, and in the past data from Parkes Observatory, searching for radio pulsars

Since the start of the project, more than 50 pulsars have been detected by this project alone, thanks to volunteering computer power.

Join Einstein@Home

Gridcoin Research is a Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency that rewards research done on the distributed BOINC platform. Today, 26 projects can be attached and gain rewards for work, where Einstein@home is one of these projects.

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What are the odds, just imagine...

Neil deGrasse Tyson describes this very good in his book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

1.3 billion light-years away, in a galaxy far away, two black holes collide, at a time that our earth was inhabited by single cell organism. After another 800 million years, earth forms complex life, with a branch we now call mammals. Among the mammals, a sub-branch called primates evolves with larger frontal lobes and complex thinking.

Among these primates, homo-sapiens forms, that develops speech, agriculture, art and science, all in the last 10 000 years. In the last 200 years, one of those invents the theory of relativity, out of his head, and predict the existence of gravitational waves. Just a century later, technology capable of seeing these waves is invented and applied. Which finds these waves, just days after its startup.

Pretty mind blowing, yet amazing!

Reminds me of one of the best space series ever made :)

Sources

• Scientific American
• Wikipedia LIGO
• Wikipedia Virgo
• Wikipedia Einstein@Home
• Wikipedia Gravitational Wave

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Gridcoin Research is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) cryptocurrency that rewards Proof-of-Research (PoR) for BOINC computation based on the BOINC RAC (Recent Average Credit) score. Some requirements are for projects to be listed on the platform but are relatively easy to comply. There are currently ~20+ Projects included that the network rewards work done by users.

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