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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.

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Here we go again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    StartsWithABang and his Forbes bullshit again. So much for new management. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    1. Re:Here we go again by sexconker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They probably have an existing contract in place that they can't just kill off without being sued.