For the first time three gravitational wave detectors have recorded the same event. The detection was made by both LIGO and Advanced Virgo (which has just recently begun collecting data for the first time). From the news release:
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo collaboration report the first joint detection of gravitational waves with both the LIGO and Virgo detectors. This is the fourth announced detection of a binary black hole system and the first significant gravitational-wave signal recorded by the Virgo detector, and highlights the scientific potential of a three-detector network of gravitational-wave detectors.
The three-detector observation was made on August 14, 2017 at 10:30:43 UTC. The two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Virgo detector, located near Pisa, Italy, detected a transient gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar mass black holes.
A paper about the event, known as GW170814, has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Related Stories
Even small black holes emit gravitational waves when they collide, and LIGO heard them
LIGO scientists say they have discovered gravitational waves coming from another black hole merger, and it's the tiniest one they've ever seen.
The findings, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, could shed light on the diversity of the black hole population — and may help scientists figure out why larger black holes appear to behave a little differently from the smaller ones.
"Its mass makes it very interesting," said Salvatore Vitale, a data analyst and theorist with the LIGO Lab at MIT. The discovery, he added, "really starts populating more of this low-mass region that [until now] was quite empty."
The black holes had estimated masses of around 12 and 7 solar masses.
Related: LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
Gravitational wave detectors could provide advance notice of seismic waves caused by powerful earthquakes (magnitude 8.5 and greater), allowing a little more time for people to evacuate (particularly at coastal regions that may be endangered by a tsunami):
Gravity signals that race through the ground at the speed of light could help seismologists get a better handle on the size of large, devastating quakes soon after they hit, a study suggests. The tiny changes in Earth's gravitational field, created when the ground shifts, arrive at seismic-monitoring stations well before seismic waves.
"The good thing we can do with these signals is have quick information on the magnitude of the quake," says Martin Vallée, a seismologist at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics.
Seismometers in China and South Korea picked up gravity signals immediately after the magnitude-9.1 Tohoku earthquake that devastated parts of Japan in 2011, Vallée and his colleagues report in Science on December 1. The signals appear as tiny accelerations on seismic-recording equipment, more than a minute before the seismic waves show up.
Observations and modeling of the elastogravity signals preceding direct seismic waves (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0746) (DX)
Related: First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
The Nobel Physics Prize Has Been Awarded to 3 Scientists for Discoveries in Gravitational Waves
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
An 'unknown' burst of gravitational waves just lit up Earth's detectors:
Earth's gravitational wave observatories -- which hunt for ripples in the fabric of space-time -- just picked up something weird. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded an unknown or unanticipated "burst" of gravitational waves on Jan. 14.
The gravitational waves we've detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral. Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny "pop" when detected by the observatories.
This unanticipated burst has been dubbed, for now, S200114f, and was detected by the software that helped confirm the first detection of gravitational waves.
[...] Astronomers have already swung their telescopes to the interesting portion of the sky, listening in across different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum for a whisper of what might have occurred.
Previously:
LIGO Observes Lower Mass Black Hole Collision
First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
Europe's "Virgo" Gravitational Wave Detector Suffers From "Microcracks"
LIGO Black Hole Echoes Hint at General-Relativity Breakdown
LIGO Data Probes Where General Relativity Might Break Down
Did the LIGO Gravitational Wave Detector Find Dark Matter?
Second Detection of Gravitational Waves Announced by LIGO
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:04AM (6 children)
There have been so many false studies I just don't believe that that scientist will tell the truth or that they will be called out for falsehoods, to much money is involved, so don't do the brown acid cause you might get a job at CERN
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:10AM (1 child)
Don't forget to pay your taxes in a few months.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:13AM
To pay for scammy people? is that your assertion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:16AM
The average IQ is 100 50% are below that.
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday September 28 2017, @11:03AM (2 children)
It's the will of Steins; Gate.
El Psy Kongaroo
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:05PM
This timeline is barrelling towards a Stein's gate. GP gives a preview of the basis for the riots in every major city next year. In my original timeline, President Clinton's response to the unfolding disaster in Puerto Rico, as well as the funding her administration made available to Arecibo, many claimed in secret even though it was never a secret, provided the focal point for these social tensions to erupt. In this timeline, it appears that the person who was elected is doing that in his own way.
John Titor only delayed the inevitable with her actions in this timeline. Y2K was only one catalyst among many. People at the end of this era rely so heavily on the global information network for their culture. It tells them what to think.
The walk to the gas station will be for your own good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:04AM
CCPls lowsec gate to Stain.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:28AM (8 children)
Did not this happen more than a MONTH ago? I had my gravity surfing board all waxed up and ready to go. So, time dilation, or SoylentNews slipping away, avoiding aristarchus submissions, causing black holes to collide and, "Do you have any idea the powers you are meddling with? Eds? Well, Do ya! Punks?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:38AM (3 children)
One dimensional thinking detected, indirectly of course
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:55AM (2 children)
But, still, not an August occurance? Oh! First Three detector event! As opposed to the only two detector event, which was not nearly so hyped by the mainstream left-wing pro-gravity media? Is that what you are saying??? OK, my bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:30AM (1 child)
A man with no subtly or sense of humor I make a black hole joke and you have to go off on some sort of political left/right thing, you know none of that matters to one dimensional objects right?
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:43AM
Wait, you think black holes are one dimensional objects? Wow, not until you get past the event horizon, my chipo! And even then, you are "spagettified", definitely not a one dimensional process. Maybe only two, at the extreme end.
Now, if we are to make political analogies, let us be very clear that these are only analogies, and are not meant to be taken literally. But do you not think that a conservative mindset is something like a black hole? No matter what the information is, it is sucked in and extinguished in darkness. Rather like Fox News! No matter what the information is. This is why Hawkings hypothesis that black holes can emit information is so disturbing. Could it be that conservatives actually have something to say, after being sucked into a singularity of infinite liberality, where we are all one, and everyone has health care and black lives matter?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:39AM
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20170927 [caltech.edu]
News Release • September 27, 2017
https://journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/69074Y64W381ce5618c199a889597e6e32e431e9e [aps.org]
Accepted 25 September 2017
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:17AM (1 child)
Clue - Sept 27 was a day back, not a month back (and greetings to my readers on the Pacific for whom it's still the 27th)
Sure, they dropped hints that they had some interesting looking candidates at the start of this month, but, in their own words, "it will require time to establish the level of confidence needed to bring any results to the scientific community and the greater public. We will let you know as soon we have information ready to share."
Do you want press departments pushing upon the world half-baked false positives, or do you want the scientists to be doing science correctly?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:28AM
I want eds that are not pressured by alt-right leaning birds of carrion. That is all I want. As for this, point taken. Only recently announced, for all three. But the one in Pisa, I suspect, was leaning, slightly.l
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:40PM
"more than a MONTH ago"
Probably, yes.
"located about 1.8 billion light-years away."
I don't know how fast gravity waves travel, but it seems that it actually happened at least a billion years ago. So, yes, old news for sure.
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:35AM (9 children)
The three detectors let them figure out where the merger was in the sky to within 60 square degrees. That's just a little less than the smallest constellation, Crux, which is 68 square degrees. Not too bad, but hopefully they can get better precision soon.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:46AM (7 children)
Citation?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:52AM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:16AM (4 children)
FTF LISA Page " We need a giant detector bigger than the size of Earth to catch gravitational waves from orbiting black holes hundreds of millions of times more massive than our sun. NASA is a major collaborator in the European Space Agency (ESA)-led mission, which is scheduled to launch in the early 2030s and we are getting ready for it now!"
Sorry sounds like a lot of spin and not in the up down way, we can confirm time dilation locally but we don't actually know that black holes actually exist all of this is conjecture and given recent dark energy thinking err, cosmology is actually a lot of unconfermable because we say so and trust us because we have other people saying you should trust us, it might be true but without some method to actually test it is still string theory level.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:45AM (3 children)
We have things that look like black holes, we can see their action - there's something definitely black-hole-like out there, we have a mechanism by which black holes can form, and which models their post-formation behaviour, which matches what we can observe. Later observations (such as these LIGO ones) agree with every prediction that has been made about black hole behaviour, and note that I am emphasising that the science is not just descriptive, but predictive.
We have duck theory, we see things that are shaped like theoretical ducks, they waddle like theoretical ducks, and now they quack like theoretical ducks. A claim that they don't exist is now the extreme one, which requires extremely good evidence to support.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @08:58AM (2 children)
Funnily, the size of the observable universe and the mass within it make the observable universe smaller than its Schwarzschild Radius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius#Parameters [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @12:47PM
No, the observable universe [wikipedia.org] is a sphere around Earth with a radius of 46 billion light years. Even the age of the universe is estimated to be 13.799 billion years, which is more than the number of light years for the listed Schwarzschild Radius.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 29 2017, @08:05AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:46PM
Wonder how much more accurate a three detector system would be if one of them was - ohhhh - planted on the moon, instead of Earth. Or, Mars. Triangulation gets more accurate when you lengthen your hypotenuse, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:50AM
Not until at least Autumn 2018 [arstechnica.com], since LIGO was shut down for maintenance and upgrades. Multiple other facilities are in development [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:40AM (12 children)
https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-P170814/public/main [ligo.org]
I saw this in the first paper, but here it is even more blatant. The people writing the papers still do not understand what statistical significance means (Ive talked to people who assure me those actually doing the analysis do understand it and don't rely on it). It ruled out the backround model. The 1 in 140k years, etc does not describe the probability it was a GW from black holes, only that their background model is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:47AM
Same AC, what we really care about is the significance of this:
They predicted an event in a certain region with certain properties. Assuming that is correct, how likely is it to not find a counterpart ( my understanding is that this is somewhat expected, so this is not a very strong test of their explanation)? This would be the appropriate use of significance though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:58AM (9 children)
So publish or parish? great again a great incentive to not hype or make more of discoveries than is warranted, cause that's how we find things out by lying or overselling things ... more cold fusion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:05AM (8 children)
No, all I am saying is the peiple who wrote and approved the paper do not know what statistical significance means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:20AM (1 child)
I think you are being very generous, by saying they don't know what they are talking about, your implication is that academics whos job it is to know thing don't know things but there is no reason for them to not know things but they don't and it is totally not self interest and money why they might try to make more of this than it really is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:50AM
You keep trying to change the subject... Do you think they understand statistical significance or not based on their statements?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:50AM (5 children)
As a fellow AC, this is good enough for me! Another AC saying that the PhD's involved in a scientific paper are charlatans and frauds, based on the say so of an AC, well, that has to be good enough for anyone! Soon, we will have ACs repudiating Anthropogenic Global Warming, proving that Obamacare is a disaster, showing that Universal Basic Income is a left-wing scam fostered by Milton Freidman, a well know communist and fellow traveler, and letting us know that khallow is correct in all things. I await the Rapture, when all this madness will be replaced with Jesus's underpants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:58AM (3 children)
Aristarcus?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:18AM (2 children)
Look, AC, you have to spell the name correctly. Then you have to say it three times! Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, it may have already gone supernova, you know, with enough energy to destroy all life on earth. Just it takes several thousand years for it's light to get to us!
Spell the name correctly. It will kill you irregardless, but protocol and decency demands getting the details right. My name is aristarchus. No initial cap. Born on the isle of Samos. Educated and taught in Alexandria. Know with whom you are dealing, or I shall have to say, "Shit, Shit, " Will this call you forth, AC? Do we dare make the experiment?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:47PM
Beetlejuice?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:39PM
This article is about gravitational waves, part of GR theory. There is no precise way to calculate mass in GR:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_general_relativity [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:32PM
All that tier one crap has been done. You should have already gotten your internets in email. We're now working on stretch goals.
It's a dead heat which will get done first, the Underpants Rapture or Sarcasm Which Is Funny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:45PM
Bending light with two magnets [youtube.com]
I will need a shit load of evidence considering these Sensitive laser experiments are being done within Earth's strong magnetic field. Any solar or geomagnetic fluctuation could be a false positive.
Furthermore, The results I looked at put the speed of the "Gravity Wave" within error bars for electromagnetic wave speed -- in defiance of the theory that Gravity Waves would be far faster than EM waves.
TL;DR: It's bullshit. The Replication Crisis Strikes Again. [wikipedia.org]