6000 hours of research to hear gravitational waves

credit: Karl Wette

In a recently published study, a team of gravitational wave scientists, led by Dr Karl Wette at The Australian National University, tried to search for continuous gravitational waves using a novel search method. Using existing observational data, the team spent a lot of time searching (nearly 6000 days of computer time!) listening carefully for that faint "hum". They also used graphic processing units-specialist electronics normally used for computer games-making their algorithms run super-fast.

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