Evidence of gravitational waves?

2002/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astrofisika

The most violent source of gravitational waves found in the universe is RXJ0806.3+1527. It is a double star and a star rotates around the other; the orbit period is the shortest known, specifically 321 seconds.

The observations were made through the National Galileo Telescope (TNG), located in Las Palmas, and the Very Large Telescope (VLT), in Chile, by the team led by Gian Luca Israel and Luigi Stella of the Astronomical Observatory of Rome. The object RXJ0806.3+1527 was known as the X-ray source, but now they have seen that it is a binary system type AM CV, binary system of two white dwarfs formed by very high density helios.

This system allows obtaining the gravitational waves announced by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, since the stars are very close and the mass of the system is enormous.