gravitational waves

Tag: gravitational waves

Can we climb mountains on neutron stars?

Posted February 25, 2023 by jormoral

[Mount Everest.]

Each year around a thousand people attempt to reach the peak of Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain on Earth, rising up approximately 9 km above sea level. In Mars, the mountain Olympus Mons goes up about 22 km, which more than doubles the height of Mount Everest. Furthermore, Galileo Galilei observed that the Moon also has mountains. What about mountains on other types of astrophysical bodies? How tall are they? Can we climb them?…

The hunt for continuous gravitational waves

Posted November 26, 2022 by Guest Contributor

[The collision of neutron stars produces a burst of gravitational waves.]

In 1916, Einstein predicted there are ripples in the fabric of space that travel through the universe at the speed of light. Today we know those ripples as gravitational waves. A century after Einstein’s prediction, science gave Einstein one of his biggest victories: the detection of gravitational waves. The detection came from gravitational waves emitted by black holes…