The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples in spacetime produce by powerful gravitational events. Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916, but it took decades to develop the technology to actually detect them. Their existence was inferred from neutron star observations in 1974, but they were not directly detected until 2015, almost a century after their prediction.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observer (LIGO) uses the interference at the intersection of two lasers at right angles to each other to detect tiny fluctuations in spacetime. Each laser travels through an arm 4 kilometers long. It is sensitive enough to detect changes 1/10,000 the diameter of a proton.

Using LIGO many gravitational wave events have been detected, all involving the merger of massive bodies – some combination of neutron stars and black holes. A new study, however, uses computer simulations to predict another potential source of gravitational waves – collapsars.

What are collapsars? They result from the death of rapidly spinning large stars, 15-20 solar masses. When they run out of fuel to keep their cores burning they rapidly collapse under their massive gravity, and then they explode from all that matter crashing into itself. This results in the formation of a black hole at the core, surrounded by a lot of mass that is leftover. This mass swirls rapidly around the black hole and is quickly consumed, within minutes. This large rapidly moving mass is what causes the gravitational waves – at least that is what is predicted by the current model. d

The beauty of this prediction is that it is immediately testable. The physicists had to calculate how many such events are happening around the universe that LIGO is sensitive enough to detect. They had to make some assumpti0ns, that such events are as common as type 1b/c supernovae, the signal to noise ratio, and the detection threshold. They calculate that we should be able to detect about one such event per year. But better gravitational wave detectors are coming.

NASA is planning the LISA space-based gravitational wave detector. This will be comprised of three arms in an equilateral triangle, with each arm about a million miles long. You might think this would be the instrument to better detect collapsars, but it isn’t. LISA is designed to detect very low frequency gravitational waves, which is not optimal for collapsars.

However, there are also plans for so-called third generation gravitational wave detectors which will be Earth-based. Once these detectors go online, the paper predicts that they will detect hundreds of collapsars per year.

This paper represents the confluence of so much advanced science and technology. First, we need the physics to understand and predict the existence of collapsars and of gravitational waves. We need the knowledge of interferometry and the technology to build the lasers and facilities such as LIGO. And we need advanced computer and AI technology to develop the simulations that predict gravitational waves from collapsars.

And of course if we can detect gravitational waves that correspond to collapsars, then that will confirm everything above. It will also allow us to explore how collapsars work and what’s happening inside black holes. This will push our understanding forward, and the cycle will continue.

Again, these kinds of stories are endlessly fascinating, and they have the advantage of being real. The universe is more interesting and complicated than any story people make up. Yet, go on social media and most of what you find is people talking about utter nonsense. There is great science there as well, but you often have to look for it, or curate good sources. It’s a bit disheartening to find countless videos with millions of hits of someone who clearly has no idea what they are talking about pontificating about complete fantasy as if it’s real. But that’s the world social media has created.

This is why scientists and academics needs to interface more with social media and create content to compete with the nonsense. Scientists have great stories to tell. They should tell them.