Sentences with phrase «passing gravitational waves stretch»

Not exact matches

Gravitational waves stretch and compress spacetime, subtly distorting objects they pass through.

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.

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

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.

As a gravitational wave passes it will compress one arm and stretch the other while an interferometer where they meet attempts to measure the minute length difference — less than the width of an atomic nucleus.

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.

A passing gravitational wave should slightly stretch one beam while compressing the other.

LIGO's interferometers bounce laser beams between mirrors at the opposite ends of 4 - kilometre - long vacuum pipes, aiming to detect passing gravitational waves that stretch and compress the length of the pipes — along with the rest of space.