Gravitational Waves

‘Radical Change’ Needed After Latest Neutron Star Collision

A recent neutron star merger has defied astronomers’ expectations, leading them to question longstanding ideas about neutron stars and the supernovas that create them.

Quanta Magazine

Harvard, Vanderbilt Scientists Find “Stellar Budget” for Colliding Stars

The study found that roughly 14 percent of stars collide after becoming black holes.

The Harvard Crimson

LIGO and Virgo Probably Spotted the First Black Hole Swallowing Up a Neutron Star

Astronomers may have detected gravitational waves from a new type of event.

Science News

Gravitational Waves Hint at Detection of Black Hole Eating Star

LIGO and Virgo observatories have spotted ripples from what could be the first-ever detection of this long-sought event.

Nature

Brian Greene on the First-Ever Image of a Black Hole From the Event Horizon Telescope

Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope announced a result that will change our understanding of the universe: the first-ever image of a black hole’s event horizon, the point at which light can no longer escape the black hole’s gravitational pull.

World Science Festival

Black Holes and Neutron Stars: A Merger in Space

With Duncan Brown, Vicky Kalogera, Frans Pretorius, Jocelyn Read, and moderator Mario Livio.

World Science Festival

Get Ready For Gravitational Waves All Day, Every Day

An infusion of cash is kicking off the next set of gravitational wave detectors, which will help physicists map the universe in richer detail.

WIRED

Gravitational Waves Could Solve a Cosmological Crisis Within Five Years — or Shake Physics to Its Core

We’re closing in on one of the most important numbers in the universe.

Popular Science

Is Gravity Quantum?

The ongoing search for the graviton — the proposed fundamental particle carrying gravitational force — is a crucial step in physicists’ long journey toward a theory of everything.

Scientific American

Harvard, MIT Scientists Propose New Method to Measure Universe’s Expansion

Scientists from Harvard and MIT could have the key to discovering how the universe began and whether it will continue expanding or eventually collapse.

The Boston Globe

Gravitational Waves Hold Key to Knowing How Fast the Universe Is Expanding

Two physicists propose using rare pairs of black holes and neutron stars to nail down a more precise Hubble constant.

Inverse

Maybe We Could “See” a Singularity After All

When black holes collide, interactions between their cores might leave an imprint on the resulting gravitational waves.

Scientific American

Gravitational Waves Could Help Scientists Solve A Major Black Hole Mystery

Astrophysicists at Brown University and Harvard University who study gravitational waves say these ripples in the fabric of space and time could help them investigate the possible existence of a very specific kind of black hole, one that hypothetically formed right after the big bang.

Inverse

What the Neutron Star Collision Means for Dark Matter

The latest LIGO observations rekindle a fiery debate over how gravity works: Does the universe include dark matter, or doesn’t it?

Smithsonian

Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves From a New Kind of Nova, Sparking a New Era in Astronomy

For the first time, scientists observed a cosmic phenomenon using both gravitational wave detectors and traditional telescopes, starting a new kind of astrophysics.

The Washington Post

New Gravitational Wave Detection From Colliding Black Holes

In another step forward for the rapidly expanding universe of invisible astronomy, scientists said they had recorded the space-time reverberations known as gravitational waves from the collision of a pair of black holes 1.8 billion light years away from here.

The New York Times