Page 4 - Michael Keith News Today

From a celestial racket to the app every cat wants you to have...Scientists in the land of Hello Kitty have come up with an app which can tell if felines are feeling poorly.

The sound comes from the merging of supermassive black holes across the universe, according to scientists

Astronomers across the world announced on Thursday that they have found the first evidence of a long-theorised form of gravitational waves that create a "background hum" rumbling throughout the universe.

Findings could bring a new era in understanding the universe, scientists say

Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos. The cause? Probably supermassive black hole collisions, but more exotic options can’t be ruled out.

The breakthrough was hailed as a major milestone that opens a new window into the universe.

Albert Einstein in 1916 proposed the existence of gravitational waves as an outgrowth of his ground-breaking general theory of relativity. Scientists described the universes gravitational wave background as the equivalent of hearing the hum of a large group of people talking at a party, without being able to distinguish any individual voice.

Professor Alberto Vecchio, the head of astrophysics and space research at the University of Birmingham, said the detection of ultra-low frequency gravitational waves represented the "gold-standard in physics".

By observing their effect on pulsars, astronomers have detected low frequency gravitational waves emerging from the distant Universe for the first time.

A globe-spanning group of physicists used pulsars to measure the waves, which they believe emanated from pairs of supermassive black holes.