Nial Tanvir, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Leicester, talking about "Gravitational astronomy", on the Cosmos Stage, at New Scientist Live 2019
Gravitational waves, a prediction of Einstein, were only detected for the first time in 2015. They are produced by rapid motions of very massive objects, which usually means during collisions involving black holes or ultra-dense objects called neutron stars. Sometimes these collisions also produce powerful explosions that we can see using other types of telescopes on Earth. Marrying these different observations is a difficult game, since the explosions happen in distant galaxies, and astronomers have to survey large areas of the sky to find them. However, the rewards are also potentially great, since these explosions can help us understand more about the nature of the universe and the origin of many of the chemical elements within it. Nial Tanvir is a professor of astronomy at the University of Leicester. His research has ranged from calculating the expansion rate of the universe to exploring the structure of galaxies, however he is best known for his work on gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known in the universe. He has used these explosions to investigate topics such as the earliest generations of stars to form after the big bang, and identifying the counterparts to gravitational wave detections, work for which he was recently awarded the Herschel Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society.
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