Could Earth and Jupiter serve as laboratories to help solve the mysteries of the universe?

Scientists say planets in our solar system, such as Earth and Jupiter, could be used to detect gravitational waves and learn more about the mysteries of the universe, from the early universe to dark matter.

Researchers from the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said the magnetospheres of these planets act like a giant observatory.

That’s because they help convert elusive gravitational waves into light particles that can be captured by specially designed detectors in orbit, the team wrote last month in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters.

Gravity Waves for Dummies: What Are They?

They say this innovative approach could lead to the observation of high-frequency gravity waves, which may have been produced immediately after the Big Bang and cannot be detected with existing ground-based facilities.

“We demonstrated that nearby planets, such as Earth and Jupiter, can be used as laboratories for detecting high-frequency gravitational waves,” the researchers wrote.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by the most violent processes in the universe. For example, the collision of two orbiting black holes can release large amounts of gravitational energy that travels in all directions away from the source.

These cosmic ripples travel at the speed of light, carrying fundamental information about their origins and the nature of gravity itself.

Although Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, their detection is notoriously difficult because they don’t interact much with most matter. Moreover, they are usually weak, causing only an almost immeasurable amount of interference in space-time.

Study co-author Ren Jing of the Institute of High Energy Physics told Science and Technology Daily on Sunday that LIGO’s success has inspired a series of ongoing and planned projects to search for gravitational wave signals below 10,000 hertz.

But she said detecting high-frequency gravitational waves has important scientific value because they were likely produced in the little-known early universe. These include the merger of primordial black holes, which created the world’s first gravitational waves and contains key information about dark matter.

Scientists have explored ways to indirectly observe high-frequency gravity waves, including one based on the so-called inverse Gotsenstein effect. This describes the conversion between gravity waves and electromagnetic waves in the presence of an external magnetic field.

Russian physicist Mikhail Gotsenstein said that when light passes through a strong magnetic field, it produces gravitational waves and vice versa.

This idea was long considered experimentally impractical because the magnetic fields would need to be astronomically large and spread out very widely in space.

Chinese team finds key evidence of low-frequency gravity waves

In their research, the Chinese team proposed using the Earth and Jupiter as giant magnets to achieve the inverse Gotsenstein effect.

The Earth’s magnetic field originates from the movement of molten iron in its core, forming a magnetosphere that extends into space and protects the Earth from solar flares and cosmic radiation.

The researchers calculated the number and frequency of light particles that may be produced when high-frequency gravitational waves pass through the magnetospheres of Earth and Jupiter. They said the results were very encouraging.

The team also used existing science detectors, including Japan’s low-Earth-orbiting X-ray astronomy satellite Suzaku and NASA’s Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter, to show that they may have captured some of the energy generated by gravitational wave conversion. coming light particles.

Our method can cover a wider range of gravity wave frequencies than other detection methods. Co-author Liu Tao from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology told the newspaper that we will also be confident in advantages such as magnetic field strength.

The researchers said the detector’s trajectory and orientation should be carefully designed to optimize detection results.

[Our study] They write that it should be considered a starting point for a more systematic exploration of the opportunities presented by such a natural laboratory.