Hello, steemians with today's post of astronomy 101, I would like to enter into one of the fascinating physical phenomena since it is due to a disturbance of space-time; I'm talking about gravitational waves.

Before beginning to get into the subject, it is necessary to emphasize that these gravitational waves were predicted in 1916, by one of the most famous physicists in history, Albert Einstein within the Theory of Relativity. that he developed.

Gravitational waves.

As I emphasize at the beginning of the post, gravitational waves are perturbations of space-time that originate from a distant point of the universe and propagate in waveforms throughout the cosmos. To understand it better is like when we throw a rock into a pond of water, the impact of the rock with the water will generate a large number of waves that will spread, only in this case those waves are caused by stars or black holes causing those waves to generate space-time curvatures.

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How are gravitational waves formed?

Gravitational waves are formed when the interaction of two or more structures with really high masses occurs. There are many combinations for the origin of gravitational waves, however, the most studied is the collision of neutron stars, the orbits of black holes or even the encounter between two galaxies.

However, as many know, all bodies that have mass are capable of generating waves, but since gravity is a relatively weak force within the scale of the universe, only the waves caused by really massive objects such as those I have described are detectable.

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Why has it taken so long to be detected?

After Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these waves, rigorous investigations have been carried out to detect them and finally prove Einstein's theory. However, it had not been possible to detect them because the propagation of these waves is something that happens very scarcely and when they originate their extension is extremely small.

Analyzing it in another way when the gravitational waves are generated they will expand and spread throughout the universe, until with some luck they reach the Earth in the form of gravitational radiation and once that happens these waves will have softened from the same way that the waves do, that is to say, that little by little they lose strength as they spread more.

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So, how could they have been detected?

Being so weak once they reach the earth, being able to detect them is extremely complicated, so much so that the current evidence remains indirect.

However, when gravitational waves are formed, alterations occur in the curvatures of the space causing it to vibrate as would the drum of a battery. Then, the curvatures of space-time propagate in all directions at speeds similar to that of the speed of light, causing physical deformations to take place of everything that crosses their path.

These deformations are generated because the large amount of energy that these waves possess changes the shape of the objects.

In order to detect gravitational waves when they reach Earth, it is necessary to use tools that have very low sensitivity ranges such as interferometers, since this allows detecting very small fluctuations.

The technique consists of the location of two objects very far from each other so that, when the gravitational waves pass through them, there is a stirring in the distances of the two objects, so that the constant measurements made by the lasers of these distances can determine when space-time variations occur.

For the determination of gravitational waves, the observatory of gravitational waves was created, known as LIGO. This observatory is not like the usual observatories, that is, it is not a telescope that is constantly searching,

The LIGO gravitational wave observatory is made up of two vacuum tubes pointed in different directions (north-south, east-west) and that in its interior has a laser that is constantly making measurements.

As I said a few paragraphs ago, the laser inside the tubes detects any anomaly that the tubes present and thus determine what is due to the effects of gravitational waves.

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Conclusions.

The confirmation of the existence of these waves is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time, since having been able to prove Einstein's prediction, scientists have once again been able to come closer and closer to the real understanding of the origin of the universe. Since these waves allow to have more information about the birth or death of some of the astronomical events such as stars or black holes.

And it is that contrary to light, which can be obstructed by interstellar gas, gravitational waves propagate through it without problems. Therefore, its direct detection will allow experts to obtain information about the space never observed by human beings.

Another of the notorious contributions that will be generated thanks to the detection of gravitational waves is to understand what happened just after the Big Bang, when the cosmos was just being born, information that was previously impossible to determine, because the Universe was totally dark at the beginning, that is, it was transparent to light years later.

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References.

• Gravitational wave
• What are Gravitational Waves?
• What Are Gravitational Waves, and Why Do They Matter?
• First observation of gravitational waves
• Three-Way Detection of Gravitational Waves
• The Detection of Gravitational Waves Was a Scientific Breakthrough, but What’s Next?