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11/22/2024 07:35:00 am

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Advanced Detectors May Help Discover Hundreds of Black Holes and Their Secrets

Black Hole

(Photo : Reuters) The ring of stars circling Sagittarius A, the Milky Way's central black hole, shows a combination of infrared and X-ray observations indicating that a surplus of massive stars has formed from a large disk of gas around the black hole.

A new study claims astronomers could detect hundreds of black holes in 2015.

Scientists from Cardiff University are planning to switch on two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to pick-up the gravitational waves created by the collision of black holes millions of years ago.

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LIGO's detectors might help us learn more about black holes.

The detectors, which will search for waves, are going to show us where the remnants of black holes are after they collide. Black holes spin so quickly their orbits wobble, and those wobbles create gravitational waves.

"These wobbles can make the black holes trace out wild paths around each other, leading to extremely complicated gravitational-wave signals. Our model aims to predict this [behavior] and help scientists find the signals in the detector data," said Dr. Mark Hannam from the School of Physics and Astronomy of Cardiff University.

The new Cardiff model will act as a "spotter's guide" to help researchers when using the LIGO detectors for better understanding how these black holes orbit each other and collide. It's been programmed into the computer codes that LIGO scientists are preparing to use, but it still requires additional work.

LIGO is a project between Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology and other universities from different regions of the world. They started the observations for gravitational waves back in 2002 but stopped in 2010 because they didn't find any.

In 2015, they'll bring back the plan to observe gravitational waves using new technology with higher sensitivities.

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