• Question: do you think gravitational waves can hurt us

    Asked by albielog to Alice, Bose, Christian, Emma, Steve on 16 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Steve Marsden

      Steve Marsden answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      Gravitational waves are incredibly weak. The one that we detected had a huge amount of energy: 10^47 J. In order to emit the same amount of energy as light, it would take our entire galaxy more than 300 years!

      This was an incredibly powerful event, and using the most sophisticated and sensitive techniques we know, we could only just detect that it was even there.

      In order for a gravitational wave to do us harm, it would need a mind-numbing amount of energy. To our knowledge, it wouldn’t be possible.

    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      No. Gravitational waves are very very weak so they wouldn’t be able to hurt you. The only way they might slightly hurt us would be if you were standing right next to two black holes smashing into each other. If that was to happen the black holes themselves would probably suck you in before the gravitational waves could have any effect.

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