LISTEN: Black Holes Collide, Scientists Declare Major Breakthrough

What happens when two black holes collide?

The answer to that quasi-zen riddle may hold the key to finally proving the existence of gravitational waves… more than 100 years after Albert Einstein’s original prediction.

Last week, an international group of scientists called the LIGO Scientific Collaboration – which includes Montclair State University professor Marc Favata - announced that its members observed what may be ripples in the fabric of space-time in September of 2015.

The “ripples” - called gravitational waves - arrived at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe when two black holes, each more than 29 times the mass of the sun, collided about 1.3 billion years ago, scientists say.

The discovery confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window into the cosmos, researchers claim.

“Gravitational waves are ripples on the ocean of space-time,” Favata stated. “By directly detecting these waves with Earth-based instruments, we are opening up a new field of astronomy. Previously we could only ‘see’ the universe... Now we’ll be able to ‘hear’ it.”

In addition to Favata, a Fairview resident, the LIGO group at MSU consists of undergraduate and graduate students, including current senior Blake More of Newton and recent graduate Goran Dojcinoski of Garfield.

Their work is focused on improving the mathematical models of the gravitational-wave signal, which will allow the properties of colliding black holes or neutron stars to be determined more accurately, according to MSU administrators.

Favata, Dojcinoski and Moore are all co-authors on the paper describing the detection.

Learn more about the LIGO research project here.

According to general relativity, a pair of black holes orbiting around each other lose energy through the emission of gravitational waves, causing them to gradually approach each other over billions of years and then much more quickly in the final minutes, LIGO researchers stated in a press release.

“During the final fraction of a second, the two black holes collide into each other at nearly one-half the speed of light and form a single more massive black hole, converting a portion of the combined black holes’ mass to energy, according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2,” researchers stated. “This energy is emitted as a final strong burst of gravitational waves. It is these gravitational waves that LIGO has observed.”

Photo 1 courtesy of Matt Heintze/Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab

Photo 2 courtesy of Mike Peters/Montclair State University

Video 1 via CalTech

Video 2 courtesy of Francis DeCarlo/Montclair State University

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