Gravitational waves have arrived, two cosmic “chirps” around the mysteries of the universe

Rome, June 29, 2021 – the first arrived gravitational waves It resulted from the merging of some of the most mysterious things in the universe: Black holes swallow small neutron stars, This is what remains of stars that have collapsed into so small and dense that a spoonful of their matter weighs like a mountain. I’ve been waiting for decades, there are two signals received by European Virgo detector, in which Italy participates with the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (Infn), american lego and the Japanese kagra. Both signs were recorded in January 2020, and belong to 900 million years ago It was described in the magazine Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Access to astrophysicists and astronomers from all over the world two kontian tweets, as gravitational wave signals have been called from the beginning, opens one Still a new phase of researchAfter the discovery of gravitational waves in 2016 and the arrival ofmulti-message astronomyWith the possibility of following the cosmic events using tools that read signals of different types, we reach the heart and open the doors in search of Unprecedented aspects of the universe. One hypothesis is that events such as merging black holes and neutron stars could occur in regions of the universe that have an extremely crowded and chaotic environment.

Now the tools that make it possible to make such complex observations are also more powerful: initially, the advanced version of the Virgo detector of the European Gravitational Observatory (Ego), located in Italy, worked in tandem. in Cassina (Pisa) and financed Infn the French National Research Council (CNRS), and two American advanced detectors from Ligo (the Gravitational Wave Laser Interferometer Observatory), located in Livingston (Louisiana) and Hanford (Washington State); Now from Japan Kagra (Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) has been added and they all work together in unison. One giant antenna.

The signals are called GW200105 and GW200115, and are codes that designate the year, month, and day of gravitational wave (GW) observation. The first, discovered on January 5, 2020, was released 900 million years ago when a Black hole Of a mass 8.9 times greater than the sun, it was devoured, like the cosmic Pac-Man, a small star with a mass 1.9 times the mass of the sun. A black hole of 5.7 solar masses neutron star Its mass is 1.5 times that of the Sun.

Ligo and Virgo continue to reveal catastrophic events never seen before, helping to illuminate a hitherto unexplored cosmic landscape” Giovanni Losordo, Virgo International Coordinator and Infn Researcher – We are now updating our detectors with research purpose Even further into the universefor a deeper understanding of the universe in which we live.”