Einstein Telescope could launch a new era in astronomy
JUNE 12, 2024
by Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT
The Einstein Telescope is being built around 250 meters underground. With interferometers in the three tunnels, each ten kilometers long, it will measure collisions of black holes in the early universe. Credit: NIKHEF
It's still just a plan, but a new telescope could soon be measuring gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are something like the sound waves of the universe. They are created, for example, when black holes or neutron stars collide.
The future gravitational wave detector, the Einstein Telescope, will use the latest laser technology to better understand these waves and, thus, our universe. One possible location for the construction of this telescope is the border triangle of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
How the universe makes gold
The summer of 2017 was an extremely exciting day for astronomers: On August 17, three gravitational wave detectors registered a new signal. Hundreds of telescopes around the world were immediately pointed at the suspected point of origin and a luminous celestial body was indeed seen there. For the first time, the collision of two neutron stars was detected both optically and as a gravitational wave.
Neutron stars are something very special in the universe: They are burnt-out stars that no longer emit any visible radiation. They weigh slightly more than our sun, but squeeze their mass into a sphere less than 20 km in diameter. The force of their collision is so great that atomic nuclei are torn apart, gigantic amounts of mass ejected, and heavy atoms such as gold can be formed.
More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-einstein-telescope-era-astronomy.html