Fourth gravitational wave is detected

Agence France Presse

Miami, September 29, 2017 00:00 IST

Updated: September 29, 2017 04:46 IST

Mysteries of the universe:A 3km-long arm that is part of the Virgo detector for gravitational waves.AFPAFP

European equipment records ripple

A fourth gravitational wave has been detected — this time with help from Italy-based equipment — after two black holes collided, sending ripples through the fabric of space and time, researchers said.
Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity, but the first hard evidence of their existence came only in 2015, when two U.S. detectors found the first such signal.
The latest space-time ripples were detected on August 14 at 10:30 GMT when two giant black holes with masses about 31 and 25 times the mass of the Sun merged about 1.8 billion light-years away.
Spinning black hole
“The newly produced spinning black hole has about 53 times the mass of our Sun,” said a statement from the international scientists at Virgo detector, located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Cascina, near Pisa, Italy.
“While this new event is of astrophysical relevance, its detection comes with an additional asset: this is the first significant gravitational wave signal recorded by the Virgo detector.”
The Virgo detector — an underground L-shaped instrument that tracks gravitational waves using the physics of laser light and space — recently underwent an upgrade, and while still less sensitive than its U.S. counterparts, it was able to confirm the same signal.
Known as interferometers, these high-tech underground stations do not rely on light in the sky like a telescope does, but instead sense vibrations in space and can pick up the “chirp” created by a gravitational wave.
“It is wonderful to see a first gravitational-wave signal in our brand new Advanced Virgo detector only two weeks after it officially started taking data,” said Virgo spokesperson Jo van den Brand of Nikhef and Vrije Universiteit (VU) University Amsterdam.
Previously, gravitational waves have been found using two U.S.-based detectors, known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.
The first was found in September 2015 and announced to the public in early 2016, a historic achievement after decades of scientific research.
LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation in the U.S. and operated by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Global network
The Virgo collaboration includes more than 280 physicists and engineers belonging to 20 different European research groups.
“This is just the beginning of observations with the network enabled by Virgo and LIGO working together,” said David Shoemaker, MIT’s spokesman for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

From New York To London In 29 Minutes, SpaceX's Elon Musk Unveils Plan[[mumbai south to virar 3 hours+accidents]]

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From New York To London In 29 Minutes, SpaceX's Elon Musk Unveils Plan

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From New York To London In 29 Minutes, SpaceX's Elon Musk Unveils Plan

In addition to helping create a city on the Red Planet, he said the next rocket he intends to build would also be capable of helping create a base camp on the moon - and flying people across the globe.

by Taboola

Highlights

Elon Musk has expanded his ambitions from just building a city on Mars
Through SpaceX, he also wants to create a base camp on the moon
He also said super fast transport between global cities could be achieved

For years, Elon Musk has been focused on building a colony on Mars. It's why he founded SpaceX in 2002, and it's been the driving force behind it ever since.

But during a speech in Adelaide, Australia, Friday morning, Musk said he has dramatically expanded his already-outsize ambitions. In addition to helping create a city on the Red Planet, he said the next rocket he intends to build would also be capable of helping create a base camp on the moon - and flying people across the globe.

"It's 2017, we should have a lunar base by now," he said during a 40-minute speech at the International Astronautical Congress. "What the hell has been going on?"

In a surprise twist, he also said the massive rocket and spaceship, which would have more pressurized passenger space than an Airbus A380 airplane, could also fly passengers anywhere on Earth in less than an hour. Traveling at a maximum speed of more than 18,000 mph, a trip from New York to Shanghai, for example, would take 39 minutes, he said. New York to London could be done in 29 minutes.

"If we're building this thing to go to the moon and Mars, why not go other places as well?" he said.

The speech was billed as an update to one he gave a year ago, in which he provided details for how SpaceX would make humanity a "multi-planet species."

An artist's rendering shows a SpaceX satellite in flight

At the speech a year ago, Musk unveiled a behemoth of a rocket that was so ambitious and mind-bogglingly large that critics said it was detached from reality. Now, he and his team at SpaceX have done some editing, and Musk presented a revised plan early Friday to build a massive, but more reasonably sized, rocket that he calls the BFR, or Big [expletive] Rocket.

"I think we've figured out how to pay for it, this is very important," he said.

The new fully reusable system includes a booster stage and a spaceship capable of carrying 100 people or so. It would be capable of flying astronauts and cargo on an array of missions, from across the globe, to the International Space Station in low Earth orbit and to the moon and Mars in deep space. It'd also be capable of launching satellites, he said, while effectively replacing all of the rockets and spacecraft SpaceX currently uses or is developing, making them redundant.

That would allow the company to put all of its resources into development of the BFR, he said.

Earlier this year, Musk announced that SpaceX would fly two private citizens in a trip around the moon by late next year. And he hinted at the moon base during a conference in July.

If you want to get the public really fired up, I think we've got to have a base on the moon. That'd be pretty cool. And then going beyond there and getting people to Mars," he said. "That's the continuance of the dream of Apollo that I think people are really looking for."

But Friday morning he made it clear that Mars is still the ultimate goal. During his talk, a chart showed that SpaceX planned to fly two cargo missions to Mars by 2022, a very ambitious timeline.
"That's not a typo," he said, but allowed: "It is aspirational."

Another rendering shows Elon Musk's plan for a base on the moon

By 2024, he said the company could fly four more ships to Mars, two with human passengers and two more cargo-only ships.

SpaceX has upended the space industry, and Musk, with his celebrity, bravado and business acumen, has reignited interest in space. The company, which has won more than $4 billion in contracts from NASA, was the first commercial venture to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station; previously it had only been done by governments. It currently flies cargo there, and is also under contract from NASA to fly astronauts there, which could happen as early as next year.

But despite all its triumphs, the company still hasn't flown a single human to space, not even to low Earth orbit, let alone Mars, which on average is 140 million miles from Earth (though the planets come to within 35 million miles of each other every 26 months).

The travel between cities on Earth would also face substantial hurdles. In addition to the technological challenges, there would have to be regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Musk's speech comes two days after NASA announced that it had signed an agreement with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to study exploration in the vicinity of the moon under a plan called the "Deep Space Gateway" that could, eventually, lead to a habitat near the moon.

Lockheed Martin also unveiled a plan for deep space exploration Thursday, updating its "Mars Base Camp" system, a massive orbiting laboratory. Now the company says it could also build a lander capable of touching down on Mars or the moon. The company said it could launch within a decade in conjunction with NASA.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Scientists express concern after discovery of plastic chunks in Arctic ice

The finding has prompted fears that as the ice melts, because of climate change, plastic that has long been trapped in it is flowing into the Arctic.

Image courtesy: Pixabay (Representational image)

New Delhi: According to reports, scientists have discovered sizable chunks of plastic near the North Pole, raising fears that melting ice will allow more of the material to be released into the Arctic Ocean – with detremental effects on wildlife.
A team of scientists drawn from the US, Norway and Hong Kong and headed by marine biologist Tim Gordon of Exeter University in the UK found polystyrene chunks 1,609 kilometers from the North Pole in the area that was previously inaccessible because of sea ice.
They found two large pieces on the edge of ice flows between 77 degree and 80 degree north, in the middle of the international waters of the central Arctic Ocean.

It is one of the most northerly sightings of such debris in the world's oceans, which are increasingly polluted by plastics and confirm just how far plastic pollution has spread, 'The Guradian' reported.
This comes at a time when climate change-induced melting of Arctic ice has been a pressing matter for scientists across the world.
The finding has prompted fears that as the ice melts, because of climate change, plastic that has long been trapped in it is flowing into the Arctic.
"Finding pieces of rubbish like this is a worrying sign that melting ice may be allowing high levels of pollution to drift into these areas," said Gordon.
"This is potentially very dangerous for the Arctic's wildlife," he said.
More than five trillion pieces of plastic are estimated floating on the surface of the world's oceans. It has been claimed that there is now enough plastic to form a permanent layer in the fossil record.
A significant concern is that large plastic pieces can break down into "micro plastics" ? tiny particles that are accidentally consumed by filter-feeding animals.
The particles remain in animals' bodies and are passed up the food chain, threatening wildlife at all levels from zooplankton to apex predators such as polar bears, researchers said.
"Many rivers that are often a source of plastic pollution lead into the Arctic Ocean, but plastic pollution has been literally trapped into the ice. Now the ice is melting we believe microplastics are being released into the Arctic," said Ceri Lewis from University of Exeter.
Some projections indicate that the entire Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2050, allowing human exploitation such as commercial fishing, shipping and industry of the newly opened waters.
Plastic waste is a menace that is the result of industrialization and to an extent, human activities, without realizing that it ends up affecting our health as well.
Plastic is considered inexpensive and durable, which is why it is most commonly used for packaging.
However, due to its slow degradation process, plastics can severely affect living organisms, especially marine life, through entanglement, direct ingestion of plastic waste, or through exposure to chemicals within plastics that cause interruptions in biological functions.