Scientists’ recent detection of low-frequency gravitational waves may shed light on what’s causing the constant hum of fluctuations in the fabric of space and time. Earlier this year, after 15 years of research, scientists finally heard the background hum of low-frequency gravitational waves filling our universe. Now the hard work of locating the source of these fluctuations in space-time can begin.

Currently, the main suspects in this case are pairs of supermassive black holes, whose masses are millions or even billions of times greater than the mass of the Sun. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a few unusual suspects that could potentially lead us to new physics.

The breakthrough was made by researchers at the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), who analyzed 68 rapidly spinning neutron stars, also known as pulsars, that regularly pass radiation over Earth. Such activity allows the pulsars to evolve into a very precise cosmic clock called the “pulsar timing system.”

As gravitational waves travel through space, they cause the space-time or space-time fabric to become compressed and compressed. Data on this effect can eventually be combined with pulsar timing matrices to create a detectable signal or “spectra” for scientists to study.

But this isn’t the first time gravitational waves have been detected. Earlier identifications have been made with the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) since 2015, but the point is that they include high-frequency, shorter-wavelength gravitational waves from different types of sources, such as stellar-mass black holes.

“The biggest difference between these gravitational waves detected by NANOGrav is wavelength. These gravitational waves are much longer,” Scott Ransom, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and former head of NANOGrav, told Space.com. .

Ransom also compared the difference to the known phenomenon of electromagnetic frequencies: “If you think in terms of the electromagnetic spectrum, NANOGrav is like radio astronomy and LIGO is like X-ray astronomy.”

This difference in wavelength frequency between the two types of gravitational waves is huge.

To put this in perspective, the gravitational waves detected by LIGO represent waves that are thousands of miles (or kilometers) long and have frequencies ranging from milliseconds to seconds. In contrast, the new gravitational waves detected by NANOGrav have wavelengths of trillions of miles (or kilometers). This is similar to the staggering 20 light-years distance between the Sun and its neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. Additionally, NANOGrav’s gravitational wavelengths have frequencies on the scale of years rather than seconds.

In practice, this means that scientists have to collect 15 years of NANOGrav data to confirm the detection of low-frequency gravitational waves. But when it arrives, it’s worth the wait.

This is because these results can lead us to new information about our universe.

“Pulsar clock experiments are long-term experiments where you definitely have to be very patient because our signal grows slowly over time,” Ransom said. Said. “Detection of low-frequency gravitational waves means they come from very different sources, from LIGO and Virgo, which are stellar-mass black holes and neutron star mergers.” Source