Feature Physics Catch a Wave Sensing ripples in the space-time sea from gravity's juggernauts Share this:EmailFacebookTwitterPinterestPocketRedditPrint By Peter Weiss June 4, 2002 at 2:26 pm The starship suddenly shudders violently. “What was that?” the alarmed captain asks the ship’s computer. Looking like a giant baseball diamond missing second base, this LIGO interferometer in Louisiana brackets a broad swath of pine forest and swamp. Although the observatory’s tubes appear to splay out because of the angle from which this photo was taken, they meet at a right angle. LIGO/Caltech This numerical simulation of a head-on collision between two neutron stars favors copious release of gravitational waves. A black hole, whose boundary is indicated by purple outlines on the green bullet shape, begins forming within less than a millisecond. Mark Miller and Werner Benger A spinning lump forged in the violent crash of two neutron stars throws out arms of ultradense matter (green, blue). Amid clouds of hot neutron gas (red), the arms churn like propeller blades, radiating gravitational waves (not shown), which have yet to be detected. Mark Miller and Werner Benger The computer deduces that a burst of gravitational waves has rolled through the spacecraft. More Stories from Science News on Physics Particle Physics The Large Hadron Collider exposes quarks’ quantum entanglement By Emily ConoverSeptember 18, 2024 Physics How to spot tiny black holes that might pass through the solar system By Emily ConoverSeptember 17, 2024 Quantum Physics A quantum computer corrected its own errors, improving its calculations By Emily ConoverSeptember 10, 2024 Health & Medicine 50 years ago, some of plastic’s toxic hazards were exposed By Erin Garcia de JesúsSeptember 6, 2024 Physics A nuclear clock prototype hints at ultraprecise timekeeping By Emily ConoverSeptember 4, 2024 Physics Mayo is weirdly great for understanding nuclear fusion experiments By Emily ConoverAugust 30, 2024 Particle Physics The possibilities for dark matter have just shrunk — by a lot By Emily ConoverAugust 26, 2024 Physics The world’s fastest microscope makes its debut By Skyler WareAugust 21, 2024