Gravitational Waves Detected For 2nd Time By The Collision Of Two Black Holes

                For the second time, scientists have detected gravitational waves created by the collision of two black holes 1.4 billion light years away, which once again confirms Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The scientists detected the gravitational waves – ripples through the fabric of the space-time continuum – using the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) interferometer in the US.

                On December 26 last year, both detectors situated more 3,000 kilometer apart, picked up a very faint signal amid the surrounding noise. While LIGO’s first detection, reported on February 11 this year, produced a clear peak in the data, this second signal was far subtler, generating a shallower waveform that was almost buried in data. The researchers calculated that the gravitational wave arose from the collision of two black holes, 14.2 and 7.5 times the mass of the Sun.

                The signal picked up by LIGO’s detector encompasses the final moments before the black holes merged. In the final second, while the signal was detectable, the black holes spun around each other 55 times, approaching half the speed of light, before merging in a collision releasing a huge amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves, equivalent to the mass of the Sun. This cataclysm, occurring 1.4 billion light years away, produced a more massive spinning black hole about 20.8 times the mass of the Sun. This second detection of gravitational waves also successfully tested LIGO’s ability to detect incredibly subtle gravitational signals.

                LIGO’s two interferometers, each four kilometres, are designed in such a way that each detector stretches by an infinitesimal amount if a gravitational wave were to pass through. On September 14 last year, the detectors picked up the very first signal of a gravitational wave, which stretched each detector by as little as a fraction of a proton’s diameter. Just four months later, LIGO recorded a second signal, which stretched the detectors by an even smaller amount. In its first four months, the advanced LIGO detectors have already detected two signals of gravitational waves, produced by the collision of two very different binary black hole systems.