Seldom Bucket
Well-Known Member
Gravitational waves are produced by all moving masses, from the Earth’s wobble around the Sun to your motion as you go about your daily life. But at the moment, those gravitational waves are too small to be observed. Gravitational observatories such as LIGO and VIRGO can only see the strong gravitational waves produced by merging stellar-mass black holes.
The chirp of a gravitational merger is clear. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/University of Chicago (Ben Farr)
The gravitational signal of merging black holes is very distinct. A periodic wave rises in amplitude as the two black holes spiral ever closer, which ends in a “chirp” as the black holes merge. This signal’s size and length tell us about the size of both the initial black holes and the final one. But new computer simulations find nuances to the signal that could tell us even more about these mergers.
Black Holes Make Complex Gravitational-Wave Chirps as They Merge - Universe Today
When black holes collide, they emit chirps of gravitational waves even after they have merged.
www.universetoday.com