Podcast: Catching gravitational waves - with Sheila Rowan

Sheila Rowan explains the nature of gravitational waves, where they come from, how we detected them, and what the future of this new era in astronomy might look like.

Listen time: 53:54
Three-dimensional simulation of black holes merging
Image credit: Henze, NASA via Wikimedia Commons

A century ago, Albert Einstein realised that in his new model for space and time in our Universe (his 'General Theory of Relativity'), space could be stretching and squashing in response to the motion of objects. These ripples in space-time - 'Gravitational waves' - are produced by some of the most energetic and dramatic phenomena in our universe, including black holes, neutron stars and supernovae.

Topic

Physics

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