gravitational waves

          We are all familiar with the concept of gravitation. But when we say GRAVITATIONAL WAVES, what exactly do we mean by it? Let us first welcome our member in the wave family, “gravitational waves” Till date, we have come access light waves, sound waves etc, but gravitation waves? So, let’s try to figure it out.

          What are gravitational waves??
It is a ripple in the fabric of space and time just like a stone which creates ripples in the pond when it is thrown. Let us imagine that space is a big sheet of rubber. Anything that has mass causes this rubber sheet to bend. More the mass, the space gets bent and destroyed by gravity. Gravitational waves are causes when every mass accelerates changing the distortion of space. Anything having mass energy can produce gravitational waves. 

 However, we need something massive to produce it, like exploding stars, collisions between ultra dense neutron stars etc. But these waves are very difficult to detect because by the time they reach us from the distant event, they distort space-time by minuscule amounts. These distortions are believed to be less than the width of a proton and hence measuring such changes is impossible for most instruments. But this was made possible by the LIGO (Laser interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory) detector located in USA . 

LIGO uses laser interferometer to mea sure  the minute ripples in the space-time caused by gravitational waves. This theory of gravitational waves was first predicted by Albert Einstein. The 2017's Nobel prize in physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Berry C. Brish and Kip s. Thorne for their contribution towards the LIGO derector and observation of gravitational waves.