AST 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Almagest, Natural Philosophy, Deferent And Epicycle

• School: Syracuse University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: AST 101
• Professor: Walter Freeman

Document Summary

We can calculate how big this is on its own. Orbits are something traveling in a straight line (that"s bent by space- time) As two objects in space orbit each other, they create ripples known as gravitational waves. Space time being pulled horizontally and stretched vertically (then vice- versa) Waves are super small because space-time is hard to stretch. Even incredibly massive objects (like stars) produce only small effects. Made an indirect observation of waves from two dead stars orbiting each other. This won them the nobel prize in 1993. It"s a long tube (with holes in it) with a laser on one end and a mirror on the other (there are 2 of them at each station) 180 out of phase: waves cancel each other out. Other observatories: 1 currently in europe, 3 more planned. Gravity wave found 09/14/2015 (detection image from google images via forbes. com) Each black hole was about 30 times the mass of the sun.