LIGO detects another gravitational wave event

[Stu]

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/ligo-detects-third-black-hole-merger-0106201723/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=sky-jma-nl-170602&utm_content=948204_EDT_SKY_170602&utm_medium=email

[johnfosteruk]

Fascinating work isn't it. These detections will be regular now I hope, even more so if LISA happens.

[George Jones]

Here is a visual simulation of this merger:

 

 

[Stu]

2 hours ago, George Jones said:

Here is a visual simulation of this merger:

 

 

Thanks George, that's really interesting.

The article states that several solar masses are lost in the event in the form of gravity waves. That's a lot of energy!!

I think this is one of the most amazing discoveries of my lifetime. When they announced the first event I thought it was incredible. To build a 'machine' so sensitive, knowing how to detect the waves and then seeing that final, beautiful waveform. It must have been quite something for the people involved with it.

[johnfosteruk]

The visualisation demonstrates the energy that's lost rather well doesn't it. The waves are Very energetic at the point of the merger. 

[The Admiral]

Thanks for the heads up Stu.

To me, sensitivity doesn't really describe the ability of this machine. I find it utterly staggering that scientists have been able to develop a machine that is able to detect a change in the length of several kilometres which is less than the size of the proton. It's beyond imagination really. And then be able to extract so much information from a short oscillatory signal. All down to Mr Fourier I suppose.

But the same is true of current technologies used to observe the cosmos. Again, extracting an unbelievable amount of information from such weak signals. I was looking at some photos of the 100" Mt Wilson reflector of yester-year (https://www.fujix-forum.com/threads/the-100-inch-telescope-on-mount-wilson.69907/), and seeing how 'primitive' things were then. What an age we live in, eh?

Ian

[andrew s]

46 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

Thanks for the heads up Stu.

To me, sensitivity doesn't really describe the ability of this machine. I find it utterly staggering that scientists have been able to develop a machine that is able to detect a change in the length of several kilometres which is less than the size of the proton. It's beyond imagination really. And then be able to extract so much information from a short oscillatory signal. All down to Mr Fourier I suppose.

But the same is true of current technologies used to observe the cosmos. Again, extracting an unbelievable amount of information from such weak signals. I was looking at some photos of the 100" Mt Wilson reflector of yester-year (https://www.fujix-forum.com/threads/the-100-inch-telescope-on-mount-wilson.69907/), and seeing how 'primitive' things were then. What an age we live in, eh?

Ian

It is not just the pro kit. Just look at what we have to play (observer seriously) with now.

Regards Andrew 

[Yearofthegoat]

On 03/06/2017 at 00:29, johnfosteruk said:

Fascinating work isn't it. These detections will be regular now I hope, even more so if LISA happens.

Looks like it will:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40346410

Makes me wish for immortality so I could see where these abilities eventually take us.

[johnfosteruk]

3 minutes ago, Yearofthegoat said:

Makes me wish for immortality so I could see where these abilities eventually take us.

I'm hoping to still be around in the 30s - I'll be approaching 60. As for the mission after that, I'm not too sure

 

[The Admiral]

11 hours ago, Yearofthegoat said:

Makes me wish for immortality so I could see where these abilities eventually take us.

Agreed, this is something that often haunts me! Science is developing at such a pace now that so many new things are just over the horizon. I'd love to be around to witness the results of the missions to the moons of the gas giants in the search for evidence of life, and even better, of finding it outside our own planet. But alas, as someone approaching his seventies and with missions taking decades to complete, that is a forlorn wish. So much to learn, not enough time!

Ian

[Ags]

I'm hopeful regenerative technologies will be available in the next 20 years, giving me 20 more years in which to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await...

[The Admiral]

26 minutes ago, Ags said:

I'm hopeful regenerative technologies will be available in the next 20 years, giving me 20 more years in which to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await...

Now it's time to wake up....

 

Or perhaps, "It's time for your meds Mr Ags"

Ian

[johnfosteruk]

3 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

"It's time for your meds Mr Ags"

And me, I read his post right to the end hoping for something different.

[Ags]

Ms Ags if you don't mind! 

[CraigT82]

5 hours ago, Ags said:

next 20 years, giving me 20 more years in which to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await the next medical breakthrough that will give me 20 more years to await...

I just hope your pension can cope with that life span!

[AKB]

17 hours ago, Yearofthegoat said:

Makes me wish for immortality so I could see where these abilities eventually take us

...or, indeed, just live long enough to have a decent run of clear skies in the UK.

[Ags]

My post could have ended: ...until I slip on a banana peel. There's always interesting anti-ageing research on Science Daily, so maybe, just maybe...

To be honest, I'll be glad to make it through another 20 years in good health.

 

[The Admiral]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

Ms Ags if you don't mind! 

Sorry Ms Ags, I didn't read your signature! No offence intended.

Ian

[SilverAstro]

22 hours ago, Ags said:

My post could have ended: ...until I slip on a banana peel. To be honest, I'll be glad to make it through another 20 years in good health.

Try having a heart attack on the morning of your 65th, puts it all into perspective ! Thank goodness for a newly built hospital close by ! , , , 

On 22/06/2017 at 10:48, The Admiral said:

But alas, as someone approaching his seventies and with missions taking decades to complete, that is a forlorn wish. So much to learn, not enough time!

It is all relative ! Waiting for the return of the Beagle could have seemed wishful, in an age when there were lots of banana skins and no antibiotics.

The longer I live the more we seem to lose of the universe Where are we now ? down to understanding only 5% of it ?? The Victorians were more than happy with their clockwork universe !!

 

 

[The Admiral]

1 hour ago, SilverAstro said:

Try having a heart attack on the morning of your 65th, puts it all into perspective ! Thank goodness for a newly built hospital close by ! , , , 

Well, as someone who had a heart attack at the age of 51, I'm only too grateful to have made it this far! And I know that when I'm gone I'll be thinking no more about it. Still, doesn't do any harm to want to see some questions answered. Keeps the interest and me alive, even though I have a fatalistic view of life.

Ian

[SilverAstro]

Anyway, back on topic, sort of, , something that is bothering me is - - why are they all (all 3 and a bit of them) so far away / long ago ?

I expect the answer is out there somewhere on the interweb but ,,,

If there are so many why non closer ( /stronger ?) near here ?

 

[The Admiral]

Hmmm! Here's my (limited) take on it. LIGO only sees the large energetic events, which is really when two large black holes coalesce. And I imagine that even though there may be a lot of black holes, they are well spread out through the universe, and the chances of two being close enough to coalesce is small. I wonder if LISA, which will see the smaller events (I think), will find a lot more closer to us?

Ian

[andrew s]

1 hour ago, SilverAstro said:

Anyway, back on topic, sort of, , something that is bothering me is - - why are they all (all 3 and a bit of them) so far away / long ago ?

I expect the answer is out there somewhere on the interweb but ,,,

If there are so many why non closer ( /stronger ?) near here ?

 

One major problem is that we don't have any reliable way to estimate the number/density of BH let alone how many are in binary BH systems. 

As a guide the number of SN rate in our Galaxy is only one in every 22 years but our optical instruments are sensitive enough to detect them to vast distances. One estimate is that there are 30 per second in the observable universe but we detect only a minute fraction of these. For example in 2014 we detected less than 150 (http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/lists/Supernovae.html) .

Given the relative immaturity of gravity wave detection I guess it is not so surprising we have not yet seem many and the sample is too small to draw any statistical conclusions.

Regards Andrew

[The Admiral]

5 minutes ago, andrew s said:

the sample is too small to draw any statistical conclusions.

I should think that is the biggest obstacle at the moment.

Ian

[SilverAstro]

On 23/06/2017 at 22:54, andrew s said:

 BH let alone how many are in binary BH systems. 

As a guide the number of SN rate in our Galaxy is only one in every 22 years but our optical instruments are sensitive enough to detect them to vast distances. One estimate /

Hmm, I did not mean to start a debate on the rights or wrongs of the standard model nor conspiracies nor alternative theories, I was just musing on fings wot bovered me ! I know about statistical samples of a few and chi !

Two are supposed to be (have been)  at about 1.4 and 1.5 bly and the other at 3 , so, given that there is 13by to choose from that is the start (maybe)of a clustering (but not a 5sigma I grant !)

Nor was I thinking of the relative numbers of BH there may or may not have been, primordial or otherwise, nor even binary nor even drifted into binorism !

But addressing the analogy of SNs and their early detection (Mk1 eyeball) it seems to me that was dependent upon the inverse sq. law ? Bright = close ??

Supposing that LIGO is the Mk I eyeball of the nouveaux regime  and assuming that the inverse sq. 'brightness' still applies then --- why they all (so far) far away* ? [is there a model that says that about 1 to 3 bly years ago there was a special time for bright bh mergers, or is it a statistical fluctuation in a broad spectrum of events]

I find on the interweb much discussion on the expected (supposed, depending which model is chosen) frequency of detection ( varying between several every few seconds to a few every few months) but nothing on the frequency over time / distance / age of the universe ? * ?