BOOM TIME FOR SPACE-TIME RIPPLES

摘要

After LIGO, the deluge. In February this year, it was announced that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) caught the first ever signs of gravitational waves. Next year, the floodgates will open. Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time shaken off when a massive body accelerates. On 14 September 2015, when LIGO was still warming up, an unmistakably huge gravitational wave hit. The signal came from a pair of black holes about 30 times the mass of the sun do-si-doing around each other. Their dance got faster and faster until they crashed together and merged into a single, larger black hole. Then, last December, we saw another one.