Black holes produce gravitational waves when they collideVICTOR de SCHWANBERGSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Efforts to understand the universe could get a boost from an AI developed by Google DeepMind. The algorithm, which can reduce unwanted noise by up to 100 times, could allow the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to spot a particular type of black hole that has so far eluded us.
LIGO is designed to detect the gravitational waves produced when objects such as black holes spiral into each other and collide. These waves cross the universe at the speed of light, but the fluctuations they cause in space-time are extremely small 10,000 times smaller than the nucleus of an atom.
Since its first observations 10 years ago, LIGO has recorded such signals produced by nearly 100 black hole collisions. Read moreHow a quantum innovation may quash the idea of the multiverse Advertisement To do so, the experiment consists of two observatories in the US, each with two arms 4 kilometres long that are set perpendicular to each other.
Lasers are beamed down each arm, reflected by precise mirrors at the end and then compared using an interferometer. The length of the arms is changed by a tiny amount as gravitational waves wash over them, and this is carefully recorded to build a picture of the origin of these signals.
*Reporting by Newscientist.*
We could spot a new type of black hole thanks to a mirror-wobbling AI
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