MEXICO: This is what a collision between two black holes would look like if we could see gravitational waves.
These elusive waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time which could reveal how the universe was created nearly 14 billion years ago.
The Esa animation was created from a computer model of what how the fabric of our universe would change as a result of a titanic collision between black holes.
The simulations follow the complex electrical and magnetic interactions in the gas within the extreme gravitational environment of black holes.
Up until now, gravitational radiation has been indirectly observed but never seen directly.
The outer red sheets predict what kind of ‘flash’ might be seen by telescopes when astronomers ultimately find gravitational signals from such an event.
This may be because they are incredibly difficult to measure. The ripples cause atoms to ‘bob’ about to just 1 part in 1000 000 000 000 000 000 000.
Building a detector to notice this is like measuring the distance from Earth to the sun to the accuracy of the size of a hydrogen atom.
