Gravitational wave

A gravitational wave is a propagating disturbance in spacetime curvature produced by changing distributions of mass and energy. It travels at the speed of light and carries energy away from its source.

General relativity: Einstein’s theory describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime produced by mass and energy. Its field equations predict gravitational waves as changing spacetime curvature propagates.
Albert Einstein: A theoretical physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. His 1916 and 1918 work derived gravitational waves from general relativity.
Binary black hole: A system of two black holes orbiting a shared center of mass. Merging binary black holes produced the first gravitational-wave detection.
Electromagnetic radiation: Energy transported through space by oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Unlike light, gravitational waves interact extremely weakly with matter and pass through most intervening material.
Stochastic gravitational-wave background: A persistent, unresolved superposition of gravitational waves from many sources or early-universe processes. Its detection could reveal populations too faint or numerous to resolve individually.
Quadrupole formula: A formula in general relativity estimates gravitational-wave power from a source’s changing mass quadrupole moment. It explains why asymmetric accelerating systems radiate more strongly than spherical ones.
Gravitational radiation: Energy carried away from a physical system by gravitational waves. The prediction that orbital systems lose energy this way implied their waves could be inferred indirectly.
Neutron star merger: The collision and coalescence of two neutron stars in a binary system. Its gravitational waves can be combined with light observations to study heavy-element production.
Gravitational field: A description of the gravitational influence associated with matter and energy. A gravitational field can be static; gravitational waves are propagating changes in spacetime curvature.
Primordial gravitational waves: Gravitational waves produced by processes in the early universe. Their possible signatures could probe inflation and conditions shortly after the Big Bang.

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