Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe of the Cosmos

Re:Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe o... by aszantu on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @02:53PM (#26170790)

how do they distinguish between different black holes? isn't it "just Waves"?

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Re:Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe o... by definataly on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:10PM (#26171036)

They use trilateration to know where it came from. Since there are 3 observatories (Hanford, Livingston and Virgo) the waves will arrive at slightly different amplitudes / times / angles ... which allows you to estimate where in the sky it came from.

The waves also have different shapes (frequency, amplitude, shape) which tells us about the nature of the merger.

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Re:Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe o... by mmmBacon on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @04:38PM (#26172136)

Your comment got me thinking about the coordinate transformation needed to triangulate the position. Having done a good bit of this as a student, I can only imagine what a nasty bit of math that must be! Makes me shudder.

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