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| CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope |
Black holes are regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can resist its pull. It is believed that every galaxy has a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in its center.
Gravitational waves can best be described as small waves or ripples that travel through the fabric of space-time. It is like putting a bowling bowl on a mattress and rolling it forward. The indentations surrounding the bowling ball as it rolls can be described as a gravitational wave.
Einstein theorized that similar to the mattress, the dimension of space-time warps and curves as planets and other objects of big masses move along it. These curvatures generate ripples (waves) in space-time that travel outward at the speed of light and diminishes in energy as it goes further out.
Although gravitational waves have not yet been directly discovered, there have been indirect observations of its existence using radio signals from a pulsar.
In this latest study, scientists believe that by studying the connection between the strength of a gravitational wave and how two colliding supermassive blackholes behave (their mass, distance between each other and how often it spirals and merge), it will help explain the growth of black holes.
