Albert Einstein suggested long ago that we are adrift in a universe filled with waves from space. Colliding black holes, collapsing stars, and spinning compact celestial objects such as pulsars create ripples in the fabric of space and time that subtly distort the world around us. These gravitational waves have eluded scientists for nearly a century. Exciting new experiments may let them catch the waves in action and open a whole new window on the universe - but they need your help to do it!
[email protected] is a project developed to search data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and from the GEO600 gravitational wave observatory in Germany for signals coming from extremely dense, rapidly rotating stars. Such sources are believed to be either quark stars or neutron stars, and a subclass of these are already observed by conventional means as pulsars or X-ray emitting celestial objects. Scientists believe that some of these compact stars may not be perfectly spherical, and if so, they should emit characteristic gravitational waves, which LIGO and GEO600 may begin to detect in coming months.
Bruce Allen of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's (UWM) LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) group is leading the development of the [email protected] project.
[email protected] is one, small part of the LSC scientific program. It is being set up as a distributed computing project, which means that it relies on computer time donated by private computer users like you to search for gravity wave-emitting compact stars.
- What are GEO600 and LIGO?
- What is a gravitational wave?
- How can you help?
- What will my [email protected] Screensaver show?
- What platforms are compatible?
- What should you do?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://chronovisor.timetravelinstitute.com/threads/einstein-home.63/
I’ll update this thread then!
