#gravity wave

[eideard]

"Did you feel that? What was it?"

“Did you feel that? What was it?”

Scientists think they might have explained the origin of a bizarre ripple in spacetime that swept through Earth on May 21, 2019, and has defied easy explanation ever since. This disturbance in the very fabric of the universe, known as a gravitational wave, may have been produced by a type of cataclysmic merger between black holes that has never been seen before, potentially shedding light on the…

[gfanlocalcryptid]

IF ONLY ICARUS COULD SEE ME NOW

[lotus-pear]

regret

[mozquito]

when the gravity is falls

[tazmiilly]

cant sleep. so I just stayed up and drew two guys. you know how it is

[aspaceinthecosmos]

hello! i've got some GROUNDBREAKING space news for you!

scientists have uncovered evidence for a gravitational wave background (GWB) in our universe, and the way they went about it is fascinating.

To fully understand what's going on here, we need to go into a bit of background information.

First of all: what are gravitational waves? gravitational waves are often called 'ripples' in spacetime, often caused by extremely energetic processes such as black holes colliding, or two neutron stars orbiting each other closely.

So, how did scientists figure this out? They used 67 pulsars (known as the Pulsar Timing Array) throughout the Milky Way, practically creating a galaxy-sized telescope in order to study this.

Pulsars are the extremely dense cores of massive stars, left over after they go supernova. These are fascinating on their own, but for this project, they had an essential feature: Pulsars rapidly rotate (think up to hundreds of rotations per second), spewing radiation out in pulses from their magnetic poles. For some pulsars, these radiation jets cross Earth's line of sight, and we get incredibly constant bursts of radio signals, which can be catalogued and used as a sort of standard, universal clock.

Here is a link to a gif showing the rotation of a pulsar. Please be warned for flashing and eyestrain.

For 15 years, a team of astronomers working for the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), used radio telescopes around the globe to track minuscule changes in the signal patterns from pulsars. The changes they found are due to the slight movement of spacetime between us and the pulsars, stretching and compressing the paths of their radio waves as extremely low frequency gravitational waves pass through the universe (yes, that includes you. your atoms, as well as the atoms making up everything around you, are very slowly shifting position, dancing along to the heartbeat of the universe).

At the moment, scientists are still debating what could have caused this gravitational wave background, but some there are some leading theories: the GWB could be caused by trillions of binary black hole systems (black holes orbiting each other) throughout the universe. It could also be due to cosmic inflation, or even the big bang itself. Scientists just don't know yet, but the opportunities this discovery opens up are incredible.

The knowledge of the GWB could help us better understand the formation of early galaxies, or even help us understand the origin of the universe.

[divorcedfiddleford]

happy friday here's one of the most self indulgent things i've ever drawn 🕺

[harpyjar]

Probably my favorite drawing I’ve made of Wave

[thefirststarr]

SPACEMAS DAY 4 ✨🪐🌎☄️☀️🌕

Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be slowed by expelling jets. This speculation coincides with known Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, young stellar objects seen to emit jets. Pictured is Herbig-Haro (HH) 211, a young star in formation recently imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in infrared light and in great detail. Along with the two narrow beams of particles, red shock waves can be seen. The jets of HH 211 will likely change shape as they brighten and fade over the next 100,000 years, as research into the details of star formation continues.

Image Credit: ESA/NASA, JWST

[talos-stims]

dipper pines [gravity falls] stimboard with nature stims in brown and gray for @gothicsanriobabi!

🍂|🪨|🍁

🪨|🪵|🪨

🍁|🪨|🍂

[floofy-nerd]

Wave is so cute and pretty I wish birds were real

[tworedplants]

I like her so much

[mysticstronomy]

HOW FAST DOES THE EARTH SPIN??

Blog#331

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023

Welcome back,

To answer the question of how fast Earth spins, you need to know two things: how long it takes to make a full rotation, and Earth’s circumference. The time it takes Earth to rotate so the sun appears in the same position in the sky, known as a solar day, is 24 hours. However, the time it takes Earth to complete one full rotation on its axis with respect to distant stars is actually 23 hours 56 minutes 4.091 seconds, known as a sidereal day.

With this information, to work out how fast Earth is spinning we need only our planet’s circumference. At the equator, its circumference is roughly 40,075 kilometres, so dividing this by the length of day means that, at the equator, Earth spins at about 1670 kilometres per hour.

However, this speed of rotation isn’t consistent across the planet. As you move north or south, the circumference of Earth gets smaller, so the speed of spin reduces until it reaches its slowest at both poles. And all of this is nothing compared with the 107,000 kilometres per hour at which Earth orbits the sun.

If we are travelling so fast through space, why can’t we feel it?

Simply put, as Earth is spinning at a constant speed, so does everything on it. Travelling at the same speed means we cannot feel the spin. It is like driving a car. Even though you are moving, you aren’t aware of speed because it is constant. Only when you change speeds do you notice you are travelling, like putting your foot on the accelerator or making an emergency stop.

A change in speed has been happening here on Earth, but it is far too slow to notice. Millions of years ago, one Earth day was about 22 hours, and Earth’s speed has been dropping for more than a billion years, with days increasing by around 2 milliseconds every century.

This slow down is caused by friction created by the ocean currents, tides and wind pulling on Earth’s surface. However, global warming may speed things up again. As sea levels rise, this change in mass could result in Earth spinning faster and reducing the length of each day by 0.12 milliseconds, which would have dramatic effects on the calibration of atomic clocks and GPS systems.

What if Earth were to stop spinning?

Without a huge external force, this is impossible. But, if Earth were to stop spinning, the atmosphere would continue to spin at the speed of Earth’s rotation, so anything not fixed to the surface, including trees and buildings, would be swept away by the strong winds.

Each side of the planet would get six months of continuous sunlight and six months of darkness.

Without the centrifugal force of the spin, the oceans would gradually move towards the poles, creating a huge supercontinent across the equator. But we wouldn’t be flung off Earth. Gravity and the centrifugal force of Earth’s spin keep us grounded. In order for us to feel weightless, the centrifugal force would need to be ramped up. At the equator, Earth would need to spin at 28,437 kilometres per hour for us to be lifted off into space.

Originally published on newscientist.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, September 16th, 2023)

"HOW DO WE KNOW THE UNIVERSE IS INFINITE??"

[overworkedblorbobattle]

Overworked Blorbo Battle Round 2 Poll: 8

[tazmiilly]

not canon.... but they needed to regroup and comfort each other so bad

[distinguished-slacker]

Can we please talk about how Ashera has rainbow dandruff galaxy effects on his hair?