LIGO Will Make Gravitational Waves Announcement on Thursday

StartsWithABang writes: When we look out into the Universe, we normally gain information about it by gathering light of various wavelengths. However, there are other possibilities for astronomy, including by looking for the neutrinos emitted by astrophysical sources - first detected in the supernova explosion of 1987 - and in the gravitational waves emitted by accelerating masses. These ripples in the fabric of space were theorized back in the early days of Einstein's General Relativity, and experiments to detect them have been ongoing since the 1960s. However, in September of 2015, Advanced LIGO came online, and it was the first gravitational wave observatory that was expected to detect a real gravitational wave signal. The press conference on Thursday is where the collaboration will make their official announcement, and in the meantime, here's an explainer of what gravitational waves are, what Advanced LIGO can teach us, and how.

Comments

And the announcement will be

[Anonymous Coward]

"We expect to find some any day now."

Re:And the announcement will be

[RenderSeven]

For an announcement, yes. But this was an announcement for an announcement, like a trailer, so the reveal is probably bigger. And no spoilers please. Clearly the NSF and DOE want the VIP's at LIGO in LA, WA and MIT want to keep the PC on the QT, 'cause if it leaks to CNN and MSNBC the UK and EU might cut the GWIC budget PDQ for AIGO and GEO and the VC's would go MIA. And then we'd all be put on KP.

Re:heavy, man!

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

There's that word again. "Heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?

And how does this help the people?

[Anonymous Coward]

This Republican-style corporate welfare is just sad.

Praise science!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine the quality of Yo Mama's So Fat jokes that will come out of this? You don't get that kind of entertainment without spending some cash on science.