

What Does a Black Hole Collision Sound Like?
28 snips Sep 17, 2025
Nell Greenfieldboyce, an NPR science correspondent specializing in gravitational waves, joins to discuss the revolutionary way we've begun to 'listen' to the universe. She explains the science behind detecting gravitational waves and the profound events, like black hole collisions, that produce these cosmic sounds. Greenfieldboyce highlights how this detection reshapes our understanding of the cosmos, revealing surprising insights into the frequency of black hole mergers and their alignment with fundamental theories of the universe.
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Space-Time Really Does Jiggle
- Gravitational waves are ripples in space and time produced by extreme cosmic events that jiggle the fabric of reality.
- They propagate outward like pond ripples and physically stretch and squeeze distances as they pass through matter.
The Original Chirp From 1.3 Billion Years Ago
- The first detected gravitational wave came from two ~30-solar-mass black holes that merged about 1.3 billion years ago.
- Their inspiral and merger produced the famous chirp that reached Earth and triggered LIGO's detectors.
Listening Complements Looking
- Gravitational-wave detectors let astronomers 'listen' to the universe, providing a fundamentally different tool than telescopes that see light.
- This listening capability enabled discoveries inaccessible to traditional optical astronomy.