Since 2015, we’ve been noticing that we’re receiving waves from the universe. These aren’t the friendly kind; they’re invisible and slightly Earth-shaking. To understand waves from space, we need to understand gravity. 

       A big object puts a big dent in space, making other objects move toward it. A heavy ball on a trampoline illustrates this warping of space. A ball makes a dip on a trampoline, so other objects want to roll toward it, not because they are attracted to the ball itself but because the trampoline fabric they are on is tilted toward the ball. In the same way, objects in space and on the Earth are attracted to each other. It’s not because of some force between them but because space, like the trampoline, is curved toward the objects.

       If two balls on a trampoline start spinning around each other, they will send out waves on the trampoline fabric. In a similar way, boats spinning around each other on a lake will send out waves. Einstein believed something similar could also happen in space. This could happen when two massive objects in space orbit around each other at a high rate of speed. Gravitational waves would then spread outward as ripples in space-time. He assumed that the waves would be impossible for humans to detect. 

       The most ambitious project to detect these waves, to date, is a pair of facilities in Louisiana and Washington called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Each observatory has a perpendicular pair of arms about 2 ½ miles long. The length of these arms should expand and contract by a tiny amount when gravitational waves pass through. The arm lengths are measured by shining a laser down the length of each tube. There are mirrors on opposite ends of the tube that reflect the laser light back and forth about 280 times, multiplying the distance the light beams travel to about 1,400 miles, causing it to be easier to detect a tiny expansion in space. After this long-distance travel, the light from each tube is then combined. If the tube changes in length, the light waves of each laser beam either cancel each other or are amplified. These vibrations are then compared to those from the second LIGO facility over 1,800 miles away. Almost all the detected vibrations do not match since most come from local disturbances like trucks on nearby roads and lightning strikes. If one facility’s signal correlates to the other, it usually means a gravitational wave event has been detected. The waveform of the vibration could be likened to the ringing of a bell.

       The amount of variation in space caused by these waves is extremely small. As a result, the LIGO detectors are designed to be sensitive enough to detect a change in the length of a detector arm equal to only 1/10,000th the width of a proton. This is equal to about the width of a single hair in the distance from here to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, over 24 trillion miles away. 

       As of December 2018, 11 gravitational wave events had been detected. On August 17, 2017, a gravitational wave event was detected, which indicated the merger of two neutron stars. At the same time, optical telescopes picked up the flash in visible light, confirming the gravitational wave detection. Now, it’s confirmed that for the first time in history, mankind can learn about the universe far beyond by seeing it and feeling it.

       Most wave detections appear to be the final moments of black holes spiraling together and violently merging. It’s calculated that the largest detected merger released energy equivalent to the mass of five suns converted to pure energy. The merger was believed to happen as far as nine billion light-years away. When these two black holes merged, they sent out huge gravitational waves at the speed of light that managed to make the entire universe between here and there, including you and me, the earth, and every star vibrate like a bell. However, the enormous LIGO detector was the only thing that could detect that wave from space. Nobody waved back, but it caused some people, including me, to pause in awe of the Creator’s power demonstrated in the cosmos.

       I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me,and let us exalt his name together (Psa 34:1-3). 

Montezuma, GA