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Third Gravitational Wave Detected From Black-Hole Merger 3 Billion Light Years Away (bbc.com)
sycodon quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source): Astronomers said Thursday that they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of mammoth black holes resulting in a pit of infinitely deep darkness weighing as much as 49 suns, some 3 billion light-years from here. This is the third black-hole smashup that astronomers have detected since they started keeping watch on the cosmos back in September 2015, with LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. All of them are more massive than the black holes that astronomers had previously identified as the remnants of dead stars. The latest detection was made at 10:11 GMT on January 4, and is described in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters. "The analysis suggests the two black holes that coalesced had starting masses that were just over 31 times and 19 times that of our Sun," reports BBC. "And when they finally came together, they produced a single object of a little under 49 solar masses. It means the unison radiated a simply colossal quantity of pure energy."
and a long long time ago.
Now in science you "feel things". How times have changed...
Yes Master ORB of COVFEFE. I WILL comply with your coded INSTRUCTIONS. ALL HAIL THE ORB OF COVFEFE. ALL HAIL.
Who knew joining the pen15 club would lead to this?
They have credibility. Rigorous scientists. Who the fuck are you? Exactly.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
What they "detected" was random noise. Nothing to see here.
They have two detectors now, one in Washington and the other in Louisiana. If they both trigger at nearly the same time, it's not random noise. This summer they'll add a third station in Pisa, Italy, which should not only help to collaborate the results, but also allow to triangulate the source.
How triangulation works for objects 3 bill. lightyears away. Wouldn't any triangle on Earth seem like a single dot for such a distance?
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That https://journals.aps.org/prl/a... was one hard read, here's one from LIGO explaining gravity waves and their detection http://ligo.org/science/Public...
The second LIGO detector is like 20 miles away, so when a gravity wave comes by I know I felt it :)
The difference in distance to the event that caused the waves on different places on Earth is indeed much smaller than the measurement uncertainty of the distance, but the detectors are receiving the same waves with different delays, so the relative distance can be measured very precisely. In addition, the detectors are not equally sensitive to signals from all directions, so the relative amplitudes measured by different detectors provides some information too.
The waves travel at light speed. The earth is sufficiently big to give noticeable delta in detection times, which allows you to find the place in the sky where the source of the waves is, no matter how far the object.
One solar mass of energy.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It works because the speed of light delay in the signal changes the phase of the gravity waves, between different detectors.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Do you ever wonder if physicists use correlations as causation to turn theories into facts? That's actually what you're not supposed to do. It's kind of like how some psychologists a long time ago tried to say Galvanometers (a lot like the grip measuring arcade machines) could be used to measure intelligence. All the rich people that could afford it are...drum-roll...geniuses! I don't remember the exact name of it or who, but the idea was that the more electrical activity, the better the brain. And in this case, there's a lot of activity between us and 3 billion light years away and I just don't see how an accurate measurement is even possible enough to get beyond any acceptable p-values, if they're even doing that because what would the control group be to have the statistics to create the math in the first place? Gravitational constant? It changes every year and a single digit change at the very last decimal place (even though it's a lot) only insures grants for these projects for next year.
Was the merger approved by the EU? Because if it's not the case, it's null and void and illegal and high profile arrests must be made. Europe has mastery over all the universe from the beginning to the end of time. Because, Europe.
They have credibility. Rigorous scientists. Who the fuck are you? Exactly.
The Real Slim Shady.
They already know the distance, so all they need is to figure out the direction the wave is going, which is what the triangulation helps refine.
Jesus said it was a moth fart. Sorry for the confusion.
"The analysis suggests the two black holes that coalesced had starting masses that were just over 31 times and 19 times that of our Sun," And when they finally came together, they produced a single object of a little under 49 solar masses
So, as a non-physicist, I have to ask what happened to the one remaining unit of solar mass since you started off with just over 50 units? I'd appreciate a serious answer, but I'm grabbing popcorn in anticipation of the normal /. replies.
Just another day in Paradise
It's the phase shift between receivers. You can't tell distance of course (unless you deduce it somehow from the signal itself) but you can tell the direction. The math should actually be slightly easier for an almost-flat wavefront.
Ezekiel 23:20
Everybody fasten your seatbelts...
The waves travel at light speed. The earth is sufficiently big to give noticeable delta in detection times, which allows you to find the place in the sky where the source of the waves is, no matter how far the object.
Using the time delta with only two detectors means the source "location" is defined by a cone.
Using the time delta with only two detectors means the source "location" is defined by a cone.
That's why they're adding a 3rd detector.
BTW, I have a question: how close would you need to be to actually *feel* this black hole collision. Would you feel something rattling your bones if you were close enough ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Jokes aside. I think we all suddenly joined the upgraded universe with more mattrr beong compacted into more matter. It may have happened for them a long time ago far far away but it happened for us NOW. My fellow apes welcome to a universe, whereby a new massive black hole jas just been added to our experience.
Geez, have the Trumpsters found SlashDot now?
Can someone explain to me how a non-direction, non-distance sensing device determined the direction and distance of a black hole merger that caused the waves because that sounds like absolute nonsense. A more accurate reading from it would be that they sensed gravitational waves but they could have been from absolutely anything anywhere and pinning down the source is impossible.
Not sure, but you will find it on the Organic Aisle and it will cost twice as much as regular energy.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Be sure to watch Veritasium's latest video on this.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Where have you been for the past 12 months? Those idiots have been here for a while now.
Second detection
Date: December 26, 2015
Mass of first black hole: 14.2 solar masses
Mass of second black hole: 7.5 solar masses
Merged mass: 20.8 solar masses
Third detection
Date: January 4, 2017
Mass of first black hole: 31.2 solar masses
Mass of second black hole: 19.4 solar masses
Merged mass: 48.7 solar masses
LIGO snags another set of gravitational waves
If it's such an insane miracle to get hitched in the first place, it couldn't conceivably happen again.
AHHH! Get it away!
I can't even get my head around what "weight" actually means in the context of a black hole, but assuming it even has weight, it seems to me that 49 suns must be a massive underestimate for a supermassive black hole given that both black holes that formed it have already been vaccuming up stars, suns and everything else for millions if not billions of years.
Astronomers said Thursday that they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of mammoth black holes resulting in a pit of infinitely deep darkness weighing as much as 49 suns, some 3 billion light-years from here.
Pit of infinitely deep darkness, huh? There's some serious hyperbole.
Wrong too But why let facts get in the way of over the top hyperbole.
Sounds just like my ex-wife's soul! Ba dump dump spish!
Anyway just laughing a bit of the creative description... How is it any more of "pit of infinitely deep darkness" than one black hole. Infinity x 2 bitches! Sounds like something you say as a kid to one up your friend who just said shotgun times infinity to get the front seat....
There's no human scale that we can relate to, for an event such as this.
According to the OP, 1 solar mass was converted into energy. In the first gravity wave detection by LIGO, a black hole merger resulted in a "loss" of 3 solar masses.
Here's my personal benchmark. Imagine how much energy the sun (our Sol) puts out. It's unimaginably huge, right? Take a look at some of the images from NASA solar satellites, they are awe inspiring.
Sol will convert something like 0.7% of the sun's mass to energy over it's entire lifetime of about 8-10 billion years. That's 0.7% total, spread over an immense 10 billion years.
Now imagine the entirety of Sol, converting to energy in something like 1/10th of a second. It's all gone and it converted into gravity waves.
What would happen to a person, say at 1 A.U., from such an event? Would it be survivable, or would you be torn apart by shear forces?
"The analysis suggests the two black holes that coalesced had starting masses that were just over 31 times and 19 times that of our Sun," reports BBC. "And when they finally came together, they produced a single object of a little under 49 solar masses. It means the unison radiated a simply colossal quantity of pure energy."
I'm calling bullshit that Superman can hold one of these in his hand.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The likelihood of random noise creating a chirp consistent with a BH merger is very close to nil. The fact that two separate stations recorded the same chirp at the same time make this explanation very unlikely indeed.