[Fish]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

What does this do for us? What good comes from the discovery gravitational waves?

It gives us a completely new way to study the universe that is not dependent on electromagnetic radiation.

The discovery of gravitational waves confirms an important aspect of the theory of relativity, but it does much more than that. Quite literally, it opens up a new chapter in our exploration of the cosmos, one where electromagnetic radiation is no longer our only tool for “seeing” the universe. As MIT astrophysicist Scott Hughes told Gizmodo in a phone interview, we can use gravitational waves to probe mysterious celestial objects like black holes and neutron stars, which typically no light.

“There’s a lot of rich information encoded in gravitational waves,” he said, noting that the shape of a spacetime ripple can tell us about the size and motion of the object that produced it. “As an astronomer, I try to think about how to go from the ‘sound’ of the waveform that LIGO measures, to the parameters that produce that waveform.”

Hughes also notes that once our detectors are sensitive enough to catch gravitational waves regularly, we can start to build a census of the universe’s most energetic events. “Actually getting some demographic data is one of the key things we hope to do in an era of detection,” he said.

“Whenever first detection happens, there’s gonna be a party, no question,” he continued. “But after that, when detection becomes routine, is when things start getting really interesting.”

http://gizmodo.com/holy-shit-scienti...f-g-1755465297