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Astrophysicists Use Apollo Seismic Array To Hunt For Gravitational Waves
KentuckyFC writes: Back in the 1970s, the astronauts from Apollos 12, 14, 15, and 16 set up an array of seismometers on the lunar surface to listen for moonquakes. This array sent back data until 1977, when NASA switched it off. Now astrophysicists are using this lunar seismic data in the hunt for gravitational waves. The idea is that gravitational waves must squeeze and stretch the Moon as they pass by and that at certain resonant frequencies, this could trigger the kind of seismic groans that the array ought to have picked up. However, the data shows no evidence of activity at the relevant frequencies.
That's important because it has allowed astronomers to put the strongest limits yet on the strength of gravitational waves in this part of the universe. Earlier this year, the same team used a similar approach with terrestrial seismic data to strengthen the existing limits by 9 orders of magnitude. The lunar data betters this by yet another order of magnitude because there is no noise from sources such as oceans, the atmosphere and plate tectonics. The work shows that good science on gravitational waves can be done without spending the hundreds of millions of dollars for bespoke gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO, which have yet to find any evidence of the waves either.
That's important because it has allowed astronomers to put the strongest limits yet on the strength of gravitational waves in this part of the universe. Earlier this year, the same team used a similar approach with terrestrial seismic data to strengthen the existing limits by 9 orders of magnitude. The lunar data betters this by yet another order of magnitude because there is no noise from sources such as oceans, the atmosphere and plate tectonics. The work shows that good science on gravitational waves can be done without spending the hundreds of millions of dollars for bespoke gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO, which have yet to find any evidence of the waves either.
Wouldn't you like as a PhD student to dream up some idea that sounds plausible and have job security the rest of your life to hunt it down especially in this time of so many layoffs? That is what is wrong with science.
Yes, I am posting anonymous, because I know this will get modded to -10 by all the people here that have read something out of a school book that was originally printed more than 100 years ago. And not a one of them modding me down has done any study on gravity.
Gravity is not a wave. There are no gravity waves. Gravity is not a particle either. Gravitons are something someone drempt up in order to do a thesis and pretend he knew something.
I would love to get paid the rest of my life to hunt down and do experiments to find gravity waves too. It's not going to happen.