🌊 Gravitational Wave Detector
Detect ripples in spacetime from cosmic collisions — watch binary inspirals, decode chirp signals, and measure strain at 10⁻²¹
🤔 What Are Gravitational Waves?
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by the most violent events in the universe — merging black holes, colliding neutron stars, and exploding supernovae. Predicted by Einstein in 1916, they weren't directly detected until 2015 when LIGO measured a distortion smaller than 1/10,000th the width of a proton. LIGO uses two 4-kilometer laser arms in an L-shape; a passing gravitational wave stretches one arm while compressing the other, creating an interference pattern in the recombined laser light. The signal from a binary merger sweeps upward in frequency — a "chirp" — as the objects spiral closer, merge, and ring down. This simulator lets you watch that entire process: set up binary systems, trigger mergers, and see the strain waveform that LIGO would detect.
Why does this matter? Gravitational wave astronomy opened an entirely new window on the universe. Before LIGO, we could only observe the cosmos through electromagnetic radiation (light, radio, X-rays). Now we can "hear" spacetime itself vibrate. The first detection (GW150914) confirmed that stellar-mass black hole binaries exist and merge within the age of the universe. The neutron star merger GW170817 was observed simultaneously in gravitational waves AND light — the dawn of multi-messenger astronomy. Each detection teaches us about extreme gravity, nuclear matter, and the expansion rate of the universe.