gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein, detected for the first time – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         
                     

                 

 
 

The international scientific collaboration LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) announced publicly on Thursday in the US, which had for the first time, detected directly gravitational waves.

theorized by Albert Einstein ago 100 years, gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic astronomical events. As our scale to drop a pebble into a pond produces ripples that deform the surface of the water, gravitational waves distort the “fabric” of space-time – and therefore the objects crossing – to propagate, the Universe to speed of light. And it was this physical deformity, which is the order of the diameter of a proton thousandth, has now “seen” by the LIGO instruments, located in the US.

The waves detected now been issued by the collision of two holes black with about 30 times the mass of our sun.

But it is recalled that, in 2014, another scientific collaboration, BICEP2 (an observatory at the South Pole), had announced the detection of calls waves primordial gravitational, which according to the same theory will have been issued by the biggest cataclysm ever in the history of the Universe:. Big Bang

Unfortunately, a blunder on the basis of calculations disrupted the results: in fact, scientists had simply detected dust present in our galaxy, left by supernovas (exploding stars).

the disappointment was great not only in the scientific community, but the general public, who welcomed this news with great enthusiasm .

but this time, it seems, detection – though not of primordial gravitational waves, but gravitational waves produced by a less ancient event and more “modest” – puts to rest around centennial prediction of Einstein.

the radio telescope revolutionized astronomy by extended the capabilities of optical telescopes because they allow detect objects and phenomena that were not visible in normal light. Now, experts expect the detection of gravitational waves becomes currency and open the way to a whole “astronomy of gravitational waves.”

A new astronomy that would allow “see” and study with a unprecedented detail, not just black holes, but also the mysterious dark matter (thought to represent by far the largest component of the total mass of the universe) and what goes in the farthest reaches of the cosmos.