H?T Alexandra Albani Many large heavenly bodies and events in the universe, such as the birth and death of stars, generate energy in different wavelengths of light, which existing telescopes can find, says Nergis Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at MIT. But compact astrophysical objects — such as neutron stars and light-eating black holes, which are believed to produce energy in the form of gravitational wave radiation — remain concealed from human view. These waves, unlike light, she says, “flow through everything, because matter is basically transparent to them. They come to us unobstructed right from the source.” For Mavalvala, gravitational waves are “a clean messenger bearing information about how the universe is put together.” These ripples in the fabric of space-time — the signature of violent cosmic events — are “extremely aloof,” Mavalvala says. In fact, gravitational waves have been dodging elaborate efforts by scientists to track them down since Einstein predicted their existence a century ago. But last March brought a possible breakthrough: Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered what appears to be the first direct evidence of gravitational waves. For Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics, the news could not be more thrilling. It willherald a new era of astronomical discovery “It will be exciting beyond measure, and the greatest excitement will be finding things we can’t yet imagine, she says.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 19:35:14 +0000
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