The rather un-poetically named star SN 2006gy is roughly 150 times the size of our sun. Last week it went supernova, creating the brightest stellar explosion ever recorded. But among the vast swathes of dust, gas and visible matter ejected into space, perhaps the most significant consequences were invisible – emanating out from the star like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond. They are called Gravitational Waves, they run through the fabric of space-time itself and having been predicted by Einstein nearly 100 years ago we may be on the verge of proving they exist.
But what are gravitational waves, why are scientists trying to measure them and, if they succeed, what would a gravitational picture of the universe look like?
Contributors
Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey
Carolin Crawford, Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge
Sheila Rowan, Professor in Experimental Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow
