Gravitational Waves!

[Wiccan_Child]

Yet another victory for Einstein's theory .

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Entangled white dwarf stars have proved Einstein's theory that moving objects create subtle ripples in the fabric of space-time, U.S. astronomers say.

Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts moving objects create the ripples, called gravitational waves, and astronomers have used a pair of white dwarf stars so close together they make a complete orbit in less than 13 minutes to confirm it, a release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported Tuesday.

Gravitational waves are notoriously difficult to observe and have been detected only indirectly by radio astronomy, but the white dwarf pair has allowed astronomers to detect the same effect at optical wavelengths, the release said.

"Every six minutes the stars in [the system] J0651 eclipse each other as seen from Earth, which makes for an unparalleled and accurate clock some 3,000 light-years away," study lead author J.J. Hermes at the University of Texas at Austin said.

Gravitational waves created by the stars should carry away energy, causing them to inch closer together and orbit each other faster and faster, and the researchers said they were able to detect this effect in J0651.

"Compared to April 2011, when we discovered this object, the eclipses now happen six seconds sooner than expected," team member Mukremin Kilic of the University of Oklahoma said.

"This result marks one of the cleanest and strongest detections of the effect of gravitational waves," researcher Warren Brown of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory said.

"This is a general relativistic effect you could measure with a wrist watch."

Read more: Einstein's space 'ripples' confirmed - UPI.com
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Source.

Anybody fancy surfing?

 

[Phileas]

And I wave back.

 

[Elendur]

Kewl thanks for the info!

 

[Cute Tink]

We posted this about the same time

 

[TLK Valentine]

Cowabunga!

 

[Cute Tink]

Since I am not really up on my physics or other such sciences, can someone explain (briefly) what impact this has other than being really cool sounding?

 

[Gadarene]

It's consistent with gravitational waves, but I think it's best to wait for a more prolonged observation of the binary before concluding that it is definitely gravitational waves - if that.

 

[acropolis]

Since I am not really up on my physics or other such sciences, can someone explain (briefly) what impact this has other than being really cool sounding?

I'm not sure exactly what information you're looking for but here goes:

You've probably heard the analogy of space-time curvature from a massive body like a planet to a bowling ball sitting on a trampoline: the ball sinks down, creating a deformation which then causes other bodies on the trampoline to roll towards in.

One implication of relativity is that the trampoline doesn't respond immediately if the bowling ball changes position. When the bowling ball moves it takes some time for that change to be show on the trampoline, which creates waves along the trampoline that radiate away. These waves, like all waves, carry energy away from the moving bowling ball.

In that sense all moving bodies radiate some amount of energy, at least in theory. It has been very difficult to confirm gravity waves for a variety of reasons. These results are newsworthy because they provide the first direct evidence of the existence of gravitational waves.

 

[Cute Tink]

Thanks acropolis. I think I understand the basic idea a bit better.

 

[sfs]

In that sense all moving bodies radiate some amount of energy, at least in theory. It has been very difficult to confirm gravity waves for a variety of reasons. These results are newsworthy because they provide the first direct evidence of the existence of gravitational waves.

It's still not direct evidence of gravitational waves: all they're doing is observing the orbital period of a binary object slowing down just as predicted if it were radiating gravitational waves. This phenomenon has been observed previously in pulsars, and in fact was the basis for the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics. The difference here is that they observed this object in visible frequencies, not radio frequencies. The difference is important because it justifies putting out an excited press release.