Astronomers from NANOGrav have detected the hum of low-frequency gravitational waves for the first time using a massive galaxy-sized detector. How does it work? They pointed telescopes at pulsars, which send out flashes of radio waves as they spin around in space like lighthouses. By analyzing small changes in the ticking rate across different pulsars, they were able to determine that gravitational waves were passing through.
The NANOGrav team monitored 68 pulsars across the sky using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico and the Very Large Array in New Mexico. Even though this method can’t confirm where these low-frequency waves are coming from, it does reveal the constant hum that is all around us and louder than expected. This means there could be larger black hole mergers occurring than once thought.
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It’s really the first time that we have evidence of just this large-scale motion of everything in the universe. Supermassive black hole binaries, slowly and calmly orbiting each other, are the tenors and bass of the cosmic opera,” said Maura McLaughlin, co-director of NANOGrav.
