LIGO technology is enabling astronomers to listen to the sounds of the universe through gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of time and space.
"What you just heard was the LIGO data coming from the merger of two binary black holes about a billion light years away," says physicist Brennan Hughey. In the LIGO lab at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Hughey and a team of scientists are working to improve the quality of instruments that record the sounds of space.
Last fall, LIGO detectors - called interferometers - picked up the gravitational waves emanating from the collision of two black holes. It was the first time scientists were able to hear what these waves sound like. Hughey says, "There are simulations that suggest the universe may sound like a jungle at night, like frogs or crickets out in the darkness. We're not there yet, but that's what we want to get in another decade or so. I think it'll be pretty amazing to be able to listen to the universe at night in the same way you listen to crickets chirping outdoors or something like that."
Hughey says LIGO interferometers will be able to tell us much more about the life cycles of black holes, the collapse of supernovae, and the collision of stars. He believes the discovery of gravitational waves could lead to a new field of astronomy in which we hear the universe, not just see it.
Brain Food is produced by KNAU, Arizona Public Radio
