Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Abstract

The "windows" of observational astronomy have become broader. They now include, along with photons from many decades of the electromagnetic spectrum, extraterrestrial "artifacts" of other sorts: cosmic rays, meteorites, particles from the solar wind, samples of the lunar surface, and neutrinos. With gravitational-wave astronomy, we are on the threshold-or just beyond the threshold-of adding another window; it is a particularly important window because it will allow us to observe phenomena that cannot be studied adequately by other means: gravitational collapse, the interiors of supernovae, black holes, short-period binaries, and perhaps new details of pulsar structure. There is the further possibility that gravitational-wave astronomy will reveal entirely new phenomena-or familiar phenomena in unfamiliar guise-in trying to explain the observations of Joseph Weber.