Scientist launch experiment to listen to “violent events in space”

PanARMENIAN.Net - The experiment that should finally detect ripples in the fabric of space-time is up and running, BBC News reports.

Labs in the U.S. states of Washington and Louisiana began "listening" on Friday, September 18, for the gravitational waves that are predicted to flow through the Earth when violent events occur in space.

The Advanced Ligo facilities have just completed a major upgrade.

Scientists believe this will now give them the sensitivity needed to pick up what should be a very subtle signal.

The theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, one of the pioneers behind the experiment, went so far as to say that it would be "quite surprising" if the labs made no detection.

"We are there; we are in the ball park now. It's clear that this is going to be pulled off," he confidently told The Documentary programme on the BBC World Service.

Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

They describe the warping of space-time that occurs when masses accelerate.

But their expected weakness means only astrophysical phenomena on a truly colossal scale are likely to generate waves that will register on even the remarkable technologies assembled at Hanford in the American northwest and at Livingston in the southeast.

Sources that Advanced Ligo might observe include merging black holes and neutron stars (very dense, burnt-out stars), and, with luck, some exploding giant stars (supernovae).

The Ligo labs first began hunting for gravitational waves in 2002. They were then switched off in 2010 to undergo their more than $200m upgrade.