BEAUTIFUL DISCOVERIES COME TO PREPARED MINDS

This week we are celebrating brilliant beautiful scientific minds as we look forward to the 2016 World Science Festival (06.01.16 to 06.05.16)

We begin with the biggest scientific discovery of modern times, just made and announced recently. Gravitational waves have finally been detected for the first time! And that has monumental implications.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time, caused by violent events deep in space. While they were predicted by Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity over 100 years ago, they have only recently been proven to exist.

It's a groundbreaking discovery that the brightest scientific minds, with the most sensitive instruments, have been trying earnestly to make for decades. The waves are so minuscule that Albert Einstein doubted that they could ever be detected. In a rare instance, however, he was wrong.

The discovery was made by teams at Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a 15-nation, 900-scientist, $1 billion-funded project. LIGO has been working on the project  since 2002.

While the observation took place on 09.14.15, the discovery was announced by LIGO on 02.11.16.

The source of these detected waves was spiral system of 2 mutually orbiting black holes that collided and merged, in a rare cataclysmic event, 1.3 billion years ago, to form a supersized single black hole. 

The new mega black hole rotates 100X/second and has a mass 62 times larger the sun’s. The power output was billion billion billion times greater than Earth’s most violent volcano -- more than all of the stars in the universe, stretching space in one direction, while compressing it in another, warping space-time, with ripples emanating outward at the speed of light.

Over time and distance, the magnitude of energy dissipated to yield signals measuring one ten-thousandth of the diameter of a proton -- proportionally equivalent to moving a distant star by one hair's width.

These signals, which resemble chirps, were picked up by twin LIGO detectors positioned about 3K km apart -- one located in Hanford, Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana. 

Later this year, the VIRGO experiment will onboard a 3rd detector which will be able to  triangulate the source of the signal to tell us where it is coming from in the sky.

Up until now, 99% of all astronomy studies have relied on the study of light and photons. Gravitational waves offer a whole new set of tools and paradigms.

"Gravitational waves provide a completely new way of looking at the universe," physicist Stephen Hawking told the BBC,  as he congratulated the LIGO team. "The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionize astronomy."

Watch  this video, as physicist Brian Greene, founder of the World Science Festival, explains, in easy-to-understand terms, the meaning and implications of this new discovery. Watch him explain it all to Stephen Colbert in a recent appearance on The Late Show. You can even here the universe chirp!

A new field of  gravitational-wave astronomy has now launched, aiming to find further clues about the earliest history of the universe.

The eXtreme Gravity Institute at Montana State University (MSU) is conducting 2 other gravitational wave projects: the North American NanoHertz Gravitational Observatory; and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna — a future space mission led by the European Space Agency with possible NASA involvement.

Read more about Beautiful Minds this week.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Courtesy of Montana State University eXtreme Gravity Institute, XGI, a LIGO member. Black (W)hole.v.
2. Image: Courtesy of NASA. An Artist's Depiction of Two Neutron Stars Colliding and Rippling Spacetime with Gravitational Waves.
3. Image: Courtesy of Christopher E. Henze, of NASA. Representation of Gravitational Waves.
4. Image: Courtesy of World Science Festival. Brian Greene Explains The Discovery Of Gravitational Waves.
5. Image: Courtesy of LIGO. A Computer Simulation of Gravitational Waves Emitted By Two Dead Stars Colliding in Space.
6. Image: Courtesy of National Science Foundation. Science Confirms Gravitational Waves Exist.
7. Image: Courtesy of Alain Riazuelo, IAP/UPMC/CNRS. Gravitational Waves Can Give Direct Evidence of the Existence of Black Holes.
8. Image: Courtesy of LIGO. Sounds of the Universe. LIGO Gravitational Wave.
9. Image: Courtesy of C. Henze/NASA Ames Research Center. Numerical Simulations of the Gravitational Waves Emitted by the Inspiral and Merger of Two Black Holes.
10. Image: Courtesy of LIGO, NSF, Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State U.). LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves from Merging Black Holes.
11. Image: Courtesy of NASA, ESA, Z. Levay, R. van der Marel (STScI), T. Hallas, & A. Mellinger. Gravitational Waves Affecting Andromeda & The Milky Way.
12. Image: Courtesy of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert / YouTube. Physicist Brian Greene Explain Gravitational Waves To Stephen Colbert.
13. Image: by Charly W. Karl. NSF’s LIGO Has Detected Gravitational Waves.
14. Image: Courtesy of Our Universe Visualized. Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Mission.
15. Image: by Nicolle Rager Fuller. Courtesy of the National Science Foundation. COSMIC SHAKE-UP. Colliding Black Holes Send Ripples Through Spacetime That Can Be Detected on Earth.
16. Image: Courtesy of NASA. A Depiction of Two Black Holes Merging.
17. Image: by BN App - Download now!
18. Image: Courtesy of NASA. Illustration of Spacetime Being Warped by the Earth's Mass.