Scientists have made the fourth detection of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space and time – formed by the collision of two massive black holes located about 1.“It is wonderful to see a first gravitational-wave signal in our brand new Advanced Virgo detector only two weeks after it officially started taking data,” said Jo van den Brand from Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam in the Netherlands, spokesperson of the Virgo collaboration.It is the first joint detection of gravitational waves with the Virgo and LIGO collaborations. The signal was recorded on August 14 by the Virgo detector located in Italy, and the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors located in the US. Findings from the event, known as GW170814, will be published in the journal Physical Review Letters.The Virgo detector joined the LIGO detectors on August 1 this year.
The detected gravitational waves – ripples in space and time – were emitted during the final moments of the merger of two black holes with masses about 31 and 25 times the mass of the Sun and located about 1.8 billion light-years away. With the end of observations with the initial Virgo detector in October 2011, the integration of the Advanced Virgo detector began.end-ofTags: gravity, ligo, space.Advanced LIGO is a second-generation gravitational-wave detector consisting of the two identical interferometers in Louisiana and Washington, and uses precision laser interferometry to detect gravitational waves.The newly produced spinning black hole has about 53 times the mass of our sun, which means that about 3 solar masses were converted into gravitational-wave energy during the merger.It is the first joint detection of gravitational waves with the Virgo and LIGO collaborations.