Gwave is an interactive browser-based waveform visualizer which demonstrates basic gravitational wave science by sending real detected gravitational wave signals through a 3D visual abstraction of Minkowski spacetime. Gwave builds on existing digital representations of gravitational waves by showing spacetime as not only a 3-dimensional plane, but also as a 4-dimensional cube.
Gravitational waves originate from binary black hole or neutron star systems. In the case of this data, two black holes lost gravitational energy as they gradually grew closer together and coalesced into a single supermassive black hole. As the resulting ripples propagated through spacetime, they expanded and contracted objects in their path by a factor of 10-21, or about 10 times the size of an atomic nucleus. This effect of distorted spacetime is difficult to imagine from waveforms and static visualizations alone. Gwave is an attempt to bridge the gap between the raw gravitational wave data and our intuitive understanding and sensory experience of the space that surrounds us.
The gravitational wave data was made public by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and the Virgo Collaboration. The first ever detected, the signals mark the beginning of a new era of gravitational wave physics and provide previously undetectable information about the origins of the universe. The data is processed using the python signal processing guides provided by LIGO as a part of their public data release.
Gravitational waves originate from binary black hole or neutron star systems. In the case of this data, two black holes lost gravitational energy as they gradually grew closer together and coalesced into a single supermassive black hole. As the resulting ripples propagated through spacetime, they expanded and contracted objects in their path by a factor of 10-21, or about 10 times the size of an atomic nucleus. This effect of distorted spacetime is difficult to imagine from waveforms and static visualizations alone. Gwave is an attempt to bridge the gap between the raw gravitational wave data and our intuitive understanding and sensory experience of the space that surrounds us.
The gravitational wave data was made public by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and the Virgo Collaboration. The first ever detected, the signals mark the beginning of a new era of gravitational wave physics and provide previously undetectable information about the origins of the universe. The data is processed using the python signal processing guides provided by LIGO as a part of their public data release.
