Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Chandra Space Telescope Collection
Name:
Still Illustrations of White Dwarf Gravitational Wave Merger
Description:
Two white dwarf stars, orbiting each other in a death grip and destined to merge, may be flooding space right now with gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein but never detected directly. Einstein predicted that accelerating, massive objects emit gravitational waves, which propagate through space at light speed. A passing wave will cause the Earth, Moon and all matter to bob, like a buoy on the ocean, subtly altering the distance between them.

View Animation [ http://chandra.harv…] (Credit: GSFC/D.Berry)
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Moon
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
UID:
SPD-CHAND-photo/2005 /j0806/wd_10.tif
original url: