Let them talk: Listen to gravitational waves make noise as black holes collide (VIDEO)
We cannot see or feel gravitational waves, which have only just been confirmed to exist, but there is a way we can “hear” them. When two black holes collide, here is the noise they make, or rather the waves.
The sound can be variously described as birds chirping, bubbles popping, wind howling in a desert, or even the breathing of scuba divers under water. It all depends on your imagination.
However, scientists go by the hard data.
Two black holes, each about 30 times the mass of the sun, collided in September of 2015, leaving behind a gravitational wave that rippled throughout the universe. Scientists converted the waves they caught into sound waves that can now be heard in the video.
READ MORE: RT talks to LIGO physicist Kip Thorne on detecting gravitational waves (EXCLUSIVE)
In the “language” of gravitational waves, the bird-like chirp we hear can mean anything from spinning to collision, but the closer the black holes get to each other, the higher the frequency of sound waves.
That is why the collision itself sounds louder – more like a record-scratch. In other words, more active black holes are, the louder the sound would be.
Turns out science can be simple, too
Posted by RT on Thursday, February 11, 2016
