By IANS
New York : A unique observatory is scanning the skies for one of Einstein’s greatest predictions — giant gravitational waves. And what it finds could literally change what we know about the cosmos, says a new study.
The study, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, says gravitational waves — produced when massive objects in space move violently –carry the imprint of the events that cause them, reports Sciencedaily.com.
Scientists already have indirect evidence that gravitational waves exist, but have not directly detected them.
About 500 scientists worldwide, led by physicist Patrick Brady, are involved in the project that centres around two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGO).
The LIGO observatories pick up signals from space and pass them on to a computer that sorts out the numerical patterns representing gravitational waves.
“There are thousands or even millions of different signals that could be emitted from space,” say the researchers. “So you have to take each segment of data individually. That turns out to be a formidable computational problem.”
The strings of numbers from LIGO are like tracks on a compact disc, says Brady. That means, once detected, gravitational-wave signals can be converted into sound.
Scientists concede that the current LIGO facilities will need to be improved to increase the chances of detecting gravitational waves. For now, the best hope is to detect events relatively close to earth.
So what is the likelihood of success?
“The events we are looking for may only happen once every million years in our galaxy,” says a researcher, “but if your instrument is sensitive enough to see such events in, say, one million galaxies, then the probability of detecting something is much larger.”
Gravitational waves may hold secrets to the nature of black holes, the unknown properties of nuclear material, and maybe even how the universe began.