Gravitational Waves: The latest discoveries and star crash news

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Latest about gravitational waves

An illustration shows black holes spiraling around each other, leaving the very fabric of space ringing with gravitational waves

LIGO gravitational wave detector breaks 'quantum limit' to find deep universe black hole collisions

By Robert Lea published

The sensitivity of LIGO has squeezed the quantum limit, meaning it can now detect merging black holes and neutron stars on smaller scales and at greater distances than ever before.

Black Holes
a mosaic of some of the galaxies in the new atlas

New 'galactic atlas' offers stunning details of 400,000 galaxies near the Milky Way

By Robert Lea published

The new Siena Galaxy Atlas is an information gold mine for astronomers and a free gallery of galaxy portraits for the public.

Galaxies
horizontal black lines are curved downward where a black ball intrudes

Why Einstein must be wrong: In search of the theory of gravity

By Andrea Giusti, Valerio Faraoni published

Unlike physical theories describing the other three fundamental forces in physics, the general theory of relativity has only been tested in weak gravity.

The Universe
gamma-ray burst illustration showing a bright white jet of material emitted from the center of a swirling orange and brown cloud of material.

What are gamma-ray bursts?

By Robert Lea last updated

Reference Shrouded in mystery for decades, gamma-ray bursts are the brightest explosions since the Big Bang and emerge from only the most violent cosmic events.

Reference
A simulated image of gravitational-wave sources in our galaxy.

How our Milky Way galaxy would look in gravitational waves (video)

By Keith Cooper published

The gravitational waves are emitted by ultracompact binaries of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs.

Galaxies
An illustration of a black hole.

'Twisty' new theory of gravity says information can escape black holes after all

By Paul Sutter published

Einstein's theory of relativity say black holes are 'bald', but a new tweak to his research may give the mysterious objects their long-sought 'hair.'

Black Holes
An artist's impression of the Lunar Gravitational Wave Antenna located inside a lunar crater.

Gravitational wave detectors on the moon could be more sensitive than those on Earth

By Tereza Pultarova published

Scientists developing more sensitive next-generation gravitational wave detectors struggle with technical challenges that might be easily overcome by putting such detectors on the moon.

The moon
An artist’s impression of matter being stripped from one star to another, removing their hydrogen envelope

Gravitational waves show black holes prefer certain masses before they collide

By Keith Cooper published

Knowing that black holes tend to have these masses could help provide a new way of measuring the expansion rate of the universe.

Black Holes
Bright points of light spread out throughout space emit a grid-like pattern.

Supermassive black holes may solve mystery of our universe's gravitational-wave 'hum'

By Robert Lea published

NANOGrav made the first detection of low-frequency gravitational waves this year. Now, the hunt is on to find the source of these ripples in space — and supermassive black holes are lead suspects.

Black Holes
an artist's illustration of gravitational waves, showing spiraling ripples on a grid-like surface emerging from two merging spheres

Gravitational waves could help us find out how fast the universe's expansion is accelerating

By Robert Lea published

Gravitational waves from merging black holes distorted due to a phenomenon predicted by Einstein could be a new way of measuring the rate of cosmic expansion.

The Universe
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