February 12th - The Sound That Black Holes Make

I am a Space/NASA fanatic. Ever since I can remember in elementary school, I remember answering I wanted to be an astronaut, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Years passed on by and I did not pursue the astronaut career path for various reasons, but that did not diminish my passion for the stars. Just about any Space news there is, there is a 99.99% I know about it.

Just yesterday, NASA released that they were able to hear two black holes collide from a billion-light-years away. It was said, by the New York Times, that this was Albert Einstein's last prediction in 1915.  "The faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago.  It completes his vision of a universe in which space and time are interwoven and dynamic, able to stretch, shrink and jiggle. And it is ringing confirmation of the nature of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape, which were the most foreboding (and unwelcome) part of his theory."

It is amazing how much technology has advanced to the point that we can detect such things! It is simply beautiful. Hear for yourself, the sound the two black holes make when they collide. To me, they sound like bubbles popping. Now imagine, sometime in the future we might even get real life images of these phenomenons. Just the thought of it excites me immensely!

(Image from NYTIMES Soundcloud)