What now, exactly?

Last Friday the story broke that gravitational waves were detected, as predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity.

Setting aside comments in the press as to how relativity has "finally" been prove (it was proved a long time ago), there is much excitement about using these waves to make observations.

I'm reminded, but only up to a point, of the discovery by Jansky that heavenly bodies emit radio waves. This gave birth to radio astronomy, which did its part to advance astrophysics.

But only up to a point. Jansky made his discovery in the 30s. Radio astronomy took off about decades later, and benefitted enormously from developments in radar technology, which uses radio waves, during the war (a spinoff of that development was the microwave oven).

The instrument which detected gravity waves is large, expensive and very delicate. Even so, it took a collision between black holes to make a "noise" loud enough to be detected. Knowing such waves do exist (as predicted by relativity), means building more sensitive instruments makes sense. Had no waves been detected, well...

What I wonder is how long will such instruments take to build, how expensive they'll be, and ultimately how long it will all take. A really sensitive instrument might require distance from local gravitational sources, for example, much as a telescope is built away from city lights. This would mean designing, building, launching and assembling the thing in deep space, say past the orbit of Uranus or Neptune.

We'll see.

There were already several underway, I was somewhat surprised to learn.

Is there any way to cheat in space? Do you need an enormous structure?

Quote: rxwine

Is there any way to cheat in space? Do you need an enormous structure?

It seems the smaller a thing you want to measure, the bigger the instrument needed.

Consider the detectors at CERN's particle accelerator. they're as big as buildings, and detect particles so small as to defy the imagination. Gravitational waves are exceedingly weak. The progression seems clear :)

I haven't been following the gravitational wave thing closely. I do know the instrument, LIGO, is huge.

Aristarchus measured the circumference of the Earth using two sticks. Cavendish determined the universal gravitational constant using a torsion balance that fit into a small room.

Quote: Nareed

It seems the smaller a thing you want to measure, the bigger the instrument needed.

Consider the detectors at CERN's particle accelerator. they're as big as buildings, and detect particles so small as to defy the imagination. Gravitational waves are exceedingly weak. The progression seems clear :)

I haven't been following the gravitational wave thing closely. I do know the instrument, LIGO, is huge.

Aristarchus measured the circumference of the Earth using two sticks. Cavendish determined the universal gravitational constant using a torsion balance that fit into a small room.

This is an interesting observation.