![\"Gravitational](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/gravitational-waves-1.jpg\" "\\"An")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
An artists impression of two black holes spiraling towards each other, creating ripples in the fabric of spacetime. Credit: R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)<\/p>\n
In 2015, a piece of equipment at an observatory in the US moved one quintillionth (10-18) of a meter. This tiny movement was the first recorded event of gravitational waves. And it helped confirm Einstein’s theory of general relativity.<\/p>\n
In 1916, Albert Einstein published his revolutionary theory of general relativity. It unraveled everything we thought we knew about gravity. He theorized that gravity results from a curve in spacetime<\/a>, the stretchy four-dimensional stage in which we exist\u2014three dimensions of space and one of time.<\/p>\n Large masses like the sun and Earth can curve and stretch spacetime.<\/p>\n Put a rock on a trampoline and a toy car on the edge. The car rolls towards the rock\u2014just like people are pulled toward Earth’s center.<\/p>\n Gravity isn’t a force, as we’d always thought. It’s the shape of the spacetime around us.<\/p>\n When an object with a high mass moves through spacetime, it carves out ripples\u2014like a boat cutting through water.<\/p>\n Black holes<\/a> and neutron stars<\/a> are among the densest stellar objects. When they spin or collide, they create gravitational waves<\/a>. These waves spread out and travel through the universe.<\/p>\n By the time gravitational waves<\/a> reach us, they are so small that we need extremely sensitive equipment to detect them.<\/p>\n Gravity is the result of curved spacetime from large solar masses. Credit: OpenStax University Physics, CC BY 4.0<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMeasuring space<\/p>\n On a vast, open plain in the state of Washington in the US lies the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory. It lives at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).<\/p>\n Gravitational waves are measured with a device called an interferometer<\/a>.<\/p>\n LIGO’s interferometer is a shed with two 4km perpendicular arms jutting out and uses lasers and mirrors to detect gravitational waves.<\/p>\n When a gravitational wave passes through the interferometer, ripples cause spacetime to stretch and shrink.<\/p>\n In September 2015, the arms on LIGO’s interferometer moved. Somewhere in the universe, millions of light years away, two black holes had slammed into one another.<\/p>\n Their gravitational waves found the arms on the interferometer\u2014the first recorded event<\/a> of this kind and proof of Einstein’s theory of general relativity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sharing secrets from across the cosmos<\/p>\n Gravitational wave research continues to uncover the secrets of some of the most violent events in the universe, including the catastrophic collisions of black holes<\/a> and neutron stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Researchers worldwide, including in Perth, are improving the sensitivity of the detectors.<\/p>\n![\"Gravitational](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/gravitational-waves.jpg\" "\\"Gravity")
<\/p>\n