Gravitational waves were discovered by astronomers a few weeks ago and it marked 14 years of hard work of the team associated with the project. The waves were detected through instruments that were developed to detect signals with a diameter of 1/1000 of a proton. However, a continuous study of gravitational waves will require a less complex and cost effective method of examining them.

The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav)’s astronomers have recommended the use of radio telescopes for detecting the gravitational waves. Radio telescopes are currently used to carry out astrophysics research. The main component of this method is ‘the pulsar’, which is the short form for pulsating radio star that is an extremely magnetized neutron star core remnant, which swivels and emits strong electromagnetic radiation waves.

The scientists believe that monitoring a group of several pulsars across the space can be instrumental in finding gravitational waves with low frequency. Waves generated from pairs of supermassive black holes, which are in each other’s orbit during their regular collision sessions, can be detected using this method.

Researchers at NANOGrav propose the utilization of millisecond pulsars to detect these gravitational signals. Millisecond pulsars send out radio waves, a few of which reach Earth and therefore a simple radio telescope can be used to measure them.

Scientists monitored a group of 54 pulsars to detect the gravitational waves since a few pulsars could not be relied on for achieving the purpose. The use of pulsar will eradicate the requirement for overly costly and sensitive instruments, and the same study will be conducted using more economical equipment. Till now scientists have not been successful in finding any gravitational waves using this method.

“Given the number of pulsars being observed by NANOGrav and other international teams, we expect to have clear and convincing evidence of low-frequency gravitational waves within the next decade”, said lead author of the study, Stephen Taylor, a Post-Doc at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.