In order to understand the universe fully, we must look at it from different perspectives. Now, let's get back to gravitational waves, and say the universe is our orchestra. And that's how we come to understand they are two different instruments. They are both string instruments, with a similar shape, and we can quickly see that they vary in size.īut to truly appreciate the differences between them, we must listen to them. Then pick two musical instruments - say, a violin and a cello. To explain why we study gravitational waves, let's return to the idea of a symphony for a moment. And scientists can use these gravitational waves to spot massive objects moving in the cosmos. Some of the origins of these waves include the asymmetrical explosion of a star, a supernova, a massive binary system of stars or black holes. Travelling at the speed of light, gravitational waves can squeeze and stretch anything in their path and in all directions, making it hard for us to detect without sophisticated equipment. Kramer is part of the international collaboration that observed the gravitational waves. 'When a gravitational wave, as seen by our experiment, passes through us (and everything around us) it stretches and squeezes us by an amount that compares to the size of one neutron in the whole body,' explains Michael Kramer, director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany. So, why don't we feel them? The answer is that their effect on us is practically insignificant. The study published in June suggests the universe is replete with such waves. When heavy masses in the cosmos accelerate rapidly, they cause an invisible yet incredibly fast ripple in space, and scientists call them gravitational waves. Gravitational waves spread in the space-time continuum like the ripples caused by a raindrop falling in a pond of water Image: Ihor Molchanov/Zoonar/picture alliance Ripples will expand from the point of impact into all directions. Now, imagine throwing the ping-pong ball onto the pond with all your force. In Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, he proposed that space and time behave like the surface of water. Objects in space - or to be precise, 'masses' - cause a curvature of space-time, the fabric of our universe. The physicist Albert Einstein said this was how matter causes gravity. It floats on the surface by causing a dent on it. Imagine gently placing a ping-pong ball on the surface of a pond. Takahashi, who was part of the study, says that may help scientists 'detect the primordial gravitational waves generated at the beginning of the universe and approach the mystery of the origin of the universe.' What is a gravitational wave? 'We are trying to clarify how supermassive black holes formed in the universe,' says Keitaro Takahashi at Kumamoto University in Japan. Hundreds of scientists have tuned into this field of study in recent years because black holes and gravitational waves could be a key to unlock the universe's biggest secrets, including invisible dark matter. In June 2023, scientists announced they had found evidence to suggest that the universe is replete with a 'cosmic symphony' of massive gravitational waves caused by pairs of black holes spinning around each other in a very slow dance.

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