Besides #GravitationalWaves from pairs of black holes & neutron stars, @LIGO and @ego_virgo could detect the combined rumble of the many sources that are too far away (hence too faint) for us to distinguish individually. We call this a “stochastic background” (1/N) This stochastic background of gravitational waves is almost like the pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof, or the drumming of popcorn: many individual short sounds adding up to a noisy whole (2/N)