This animation illustrates a linear polarized gravitational wave.



The motions of the points along the circle illustrate who the tidal forces compress in one direction and stretch in another as the gravitational wave goes by.



Gravitational waves are transverse waves in that the disturbance (the stretching and compressing of the circles) is perpendicular to the direction the wave is propagating illustrated here as moving from circle to circle to circle, etc).

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Added: 13 years ago.
Topic: Vibrations and Waves