Gravitational waves a game-changer for understanding universe, says Winnipeg astronomer

A Winnipeg astronomer says the discovery of gravitational waves is a game-changer for understanding the big questions of the universe.

"It's just kind of mind blowing," said Scott Young, an astronomer at the Manitoba Museum's Planetarium.

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Scientists from the international LIGO scientific collaboration announced the news Thursday. The collaboration includes more than 1,000 scientists from 15 different countries, including Canada.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time, which Young compares to a bowling ball anobject in space on a trampoline the fabric of space-time.

"If you put a bowling ball in the middle of the trampoline, the trampoline sags in a bit and then if you roll other things along the surface of the trampoline they sort of get pulled in towards that sagging caused by the bowling ball and that's how gravity works," he said.

"When things move, they don't just move along the surface of the trampoline, they actually make the trampoline vibrate and bounce a little bit and so it's those little vibrations caused by these things moving that we've been able to detect," he said.

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"The waves were really, really, really small and very difficult to detect," he said.

Two ultra-sensitive lasers one in Washington and one in Louisiana both detected the vibrations and converted them to audio, which sounds like little chirps or water drops, said science columnist Torah Kachur.

They were so hard to detect because by the time the waves of energy got to earth, they were so small, said Kachur.

"It's like someone in Ireland throws a pebble into the ocean and we're trying to detect the ripple in Newfoundland," she said.

"If you jump up and down you are technically making gravitational waves in space-time but they are so small that they would be completely undetectable with any kind of technology," Young said.

"You need something really, really massive things like black holes to make something that we can detect with our current instruments," he said.

Why gravitational waves are a big deal

Scientists are buzzing about the discovery because it gives them another tool to study things such as black holes and giant galaxies, Young said.

"This is kind of like giving us another colour to look at the universe with, one that will show us things we can't see any other way," he said.

Scientists cannot actually see a black hole because it sucks everything, including light, into it, Kachur said.

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Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity predicted gravitational waves 100 years ago. LIGO's discovery means Einstein was right but not proved until now because they're so hard to detect, Young said.

"I didn't think this would ever happen," he said. "I thought this would be one of those theoretical things that we would never actually be able to say, 'Yeah, this is actually real and actually happens in the universe.'"

Now that scientists know gravitational waves exist, Young said this opens up the possibilities for more discoveries.

"What other objects might be out there that Einstein didn't predict that have so far been undetectable but might now suddenly come into focus?" he said.