Gravitational waves first envisioned by Albert Einstein exist

A century ago Albert Einstein had envisioned gravitational waves. Finally astronomers have made a discovery confirming existence of gravitational waves. Background hum of the universe discovered by astronomers is creation of gravitational waves first envisioned by Einstein. This groundbreaking discovery has been made by an international group of scientists. Related report published today says that astrophysicists have been able to hear low frequency gravitational waves that creates universe permeating cosmic background hum. Space is filled with these waves primarily originating from pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling and merging together, indicates the research.

Confirmation of Einstein’s theory

Einstein talked about existence of gravitational waves way back in 1916 but these waves were directly detected by scientists for the first time only in 2016, although scientists had indirect evidence to rely on since 1970s. The recent research relied heavily on pulsars (highly dense remnants of exploded stars spinning at extraordinary speeds). Latest report is based on the data collected by NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center, comprising over 190 scientists from US and Canada.

Gravitational waves sound like hum

Everybody has heard the hum of large gatherings at some point of time. If you have watched cricket or football match being held in jam packed stadiums on TV then you would have definitely experienced the said hum of large gatherings. On TV hum sound is quiet audible but individual voices are simply not distinguishable. Scientists have discovered that gravitational waves existing in the universe sound similar to hum of large gatherings that are common in cricket, football and tennis stadium or in music concerts or even in auditoriums. This discovery has been made about seven years after initial detection of gravitational waves generated by a pair of distant black holes (black holes are objects so dense with gravity that even light is unable to escape them.

What Jeff Hazbaun has to say about Gravitational waves?

Jeff Hazbaun is an astrophysicist from Oregon State University. He told Reuters, “Gravitational waves are generated by astronomically dense objects in our universe, typically in orbital motion around each other. As these waves travel through space, they physically stretch and compress the fabric of space-time itself.” He said, “We now have compelling evidence of gravitational wave hum in a new frequency range. These frequencies are significantly smaller, around 10-12 orders of magnitude, compared to those detected by LIGO, and they have wavelengths spanning light years.” He also added, “The most straightforward explanation for these gravitational waves involves a collection of supermassive black hole pairs orbiting each other in our cosmic neighbourhood. However, alternative explanations could involve intriguing new physics related to the early stages of the universe, near the Big bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago.”