• Question: How do gravitational waves travel?

    Asked by anon-253402 to Marios on 18 May 2020.
    • Photo: Marios Kalomenopoulos

      Marios Kalomenopoulos answered on 18 May 2020: last edited 18 May 2020 1:26 pm

      Gravitational waves travel by distorting spacetime!
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      In many cases, GWs are very similar to electromagnetic waves (like the light we see for example), but what they do is “transport” information about how the gravitational field changes.
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      And because, according to Einstein’s Special theory of Relativity, no information can travel faster than the speed of light, GWs also travel with this speed.
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      Now, when GWs pass though an object, they change its shape (this is what “distorting spacetime” means in practice) and by this change in shape, we can detect them.
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      See this image for example:
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      You can detect the passing GW, because it changes the length of the lasers and produces different images!
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      Hope this helps 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: Gabriel

    Gabriel commented on :

    Water waves travel through water by making water molecules move back and forth. Sound waves travel through air by making air molecules move back and forth.

    Gravitational waves travel through the fabric of spacetime itself! When a gravitational wave passes , spacetime itself stretches and compresses!