From the Wire magazine -
What does it sound like when two black holes collide? Stefan Helmreich tunes in to how scientists listen to such cosmic cataclysms.
The sounds from space have arrived again. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has, for a third time, delivered audible evidence of a cosmic calamity, an “upward sweeping chirp” that is now the signature sound of distant black holes spiralling into and colliding with one another. On 1 June 2017, the BBC affirmed that scientists can now “‘listen’ to those events as they vibrate the very fabric of the cosmos” and MIT news reported that the latest event “made itself heard … through a cosmic microphone on Earth”. Gravitational wave reverberations have become some of the most arresting sounds in today’s astronomy – swooping noises that might remind the well-tempered listener of a Buchla box bleep, an Autechre bloop, or a Holly Herndon arpeggio. But what are these cosmic sounds – and how have they been brought into audibility?
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