Another Graviitational Wave Results!

[George Jones]

The first gravitational wave results announced in February were from a signal seen in September.

My notes from a live-streamed press conference that started at 10:15 am PDT (17:15 GMT) today:

Another, weaker signal was seen in December. This time, the signal was not visible “by eye”, but was as seen as a peak in the signal-to-noise ratio. Black holes of 14 and 8 solar masses merged to produce a 21 solar-mass black hole. This happened 1.4 billion light-years away. The signal was weaker, but more orbits were seen, so maybe more information.

Gravitational wave astronomy is really here!

[Stu]

I find these discoveries quite incredible. Having read of the complexities of isolating the minute signal from so much noise, I just think it is amazing that such beautiful and simple waveforms are produced as a result of all that technology.

[Tiki]

I used to wonder as to whether we would ever be able to observe such signals. A second discovery so soon after the first is fantastic. Not only does it help to establish functionality of the 'wave-detector' but would also indicate that coalescing-compact objects are commonplace enough in the cosmos for us to be able to gather some really useful data. Hopefully there will be more discoveries in the very near future.