Gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space-time—are on the verge of being detected for the first time, and the Birmingham Astrophysics & Space Research group is helping to build the instruments that will catch them. This matters because almost everything we know about the cosmos comes from light, from radio waves to gamma rays. But light cannot travel through dense matter or escape from black holes. Gravitational waves offer a completely new way to see the universe, one that can reveal the mergers of giant black holes and even echoes of the Big Bang itself. The group is working on ground-based laser interferometers now close to making that first detection, and on plans to launch similar technology into space within the next decade. This is fundamental science. There is no immediate practical application. But the history of astronomy shows that every new way of observing the universe—from Galileo’s telescope to radio astronomy—has eventually transformed not just our understanding of the cosmos, but also technologies on Earth. The precision engineering and data analysis techniques developed for gravitational-wave detection could, in time, improve sensors, navigation systems, and other technologies that rely on measuring tiny displacements.
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The work of the Birmingham Astrophysics & Space Research group aims to improve our understanding of the Universe, and the force of gravity which governs its structure and growth. Our extragalactic studies aim to discover the way in which galaxies, such as our own Milky Way galaxy, have developed from the small fluctuations present in the primordial gas which filled the Universe after the Big Bang, as well as probing the mysterious 'dark matter' which appears to account for over 90% of the matter in the Universe at large. Our knowledge of the cosmos to date is gleaned almost entirely from study of the electromagnetic radiation (from radio waves to gamma rays) which reaches the Earth from space. However, a whole new astronomical 'window' is about to open, based on the propagating ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. Detection of these signals is hugely demanding, but large laser-interferometers are now very close to detecting them for the first time, and the Birmingham group is fully involved in these experiments, and in the plans to move these techniques into space within the next decade. This will ultimately allow us to study the gravitational signals from giant black holes, and from the Big Bang itself. We are working towards the first detection of gravitational waves, but also exploring the new techniques which will be required to turn the study of gravitational waves into a true branch of astronomy.
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