Sentences with phrase «by passing gravitational waves»

Sensitive detectors can tell if the length of the arms of a LIGO detector varies by as little as 1/10, 000 the width of a proton, representing the incredibly small scale of the effects imparted by passing gravitational waves.

If separated by millions of kilometers and linked by lasers, such a system could then detect the exquisitely small distance changes caused by passing gravitational waves.

LIGO consists of two gargantuan optical instruments called interferometers, with which physicists look for the nearly infinitesimal stretching of space caused by a passing gravitational wave.

Longer devices are better because a given fractional change in distance caused by a passing gravitational wave will translate into a larger absolute change.

Not exact matches

Gravitational waves formed by binary supermassive black holes take months or years to pass Earth and require many years of observations to detect.

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) monitor the arrival times of radio pulses from numerous pulsars to search for shifts caused by passing long - wavelength gravitational waves.

By cross-correlating the arrival times of all the different pulses to nanosecond precision across decades, astronomers hope to detect gravitational waves with wavelengths measured in light - months and light - years as their passing periodic ripples distort spacetime around Earth.

These changes, scientists predict, will be caused by a gravitational wave that stretches and squeezes space - time as it passes through the instruments.

LIGO's instruments are designed to detect passing gravitational waves by measuring minuscule expansions and contractions of space - time — warps as little as one - thousandth the diameter of a proton.

We are attempting to detect the gravitational waves by hanging two huge mirrors from wires, each pair of mirrors about two and a half miles apart, and as the waves pass, the mirrors ride on that stretching and squeezing space so they are pushed apart and pulled together, back and forth.

A passing gravitational wave would generally stretch the arms by different amounts, and that's what the LIGO team spotted.

Called gravitational waves, these undulations are so tiny that one passing through Earth would jostle us by far less than the diameter of a proton.

When a gravitational wave passes by, it stretches the paths each laser beam travels.

Weiss realized that output could reveal a passing gravitational wave, which generally would stretch the arms by different amounts.

The new LIGO discovery is the first observation of gravitational waves themselves, made by measuring the tiny disturbances the waves make to space and time as they pass through Earth.

According to Einstein's theory, the distance between the mirrors will change by an infinitesimal amount when a gravitational wave passes by the detector.

The phenomenon was observed by two US - based underground detectors, designed to spot tiny vibrations from passing gravitational waves, a project known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational - wave Observatgravitational waves, a project known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational - wave ObservatGravitational - wave Observatory, or LIGO.

In fact, the ring - like shape is the result of the gravitational disruption caused by a small intruder galaxy passing through a large one, compressing the interstellar gas and dust, and causing a wave of star formation wave to move out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond.

What scientists really wanted, however, was a direct detection - to observe the distorting effect of a gravitational wave emitted by a celestial object that has travelled across the universe and then passed through the Earth.

Physicists still hope to surf a passing gravitational wave, which would amount to the first direct detection of these entities, in contrast to the indirect effects seen by BICEP2 and Hulse and Taylor.

Sensitive detectors can tell if the length of the arms varies by as little as 1/10, 000 the width of a proton due to passing gravitational waves.