Could you slow down gravity waves?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Could you slow down gravity waves?

I’m going to be annoyingly pedantic here and point out that the question should be “could you slow down gravitational waves?” because “gravity wave” is the official description of ocean waves, and they can be slowed down.

I can’t see why not. A sufficiently dense mass (such as neutronium) ought to be able to slow gravitational waves down a bit. But it would take an enormous mass to slow it down a lot. eg. The mass of the Sun may be able to change the speed of gravitational waves by a maximum of 6 parts in 10^10, or to put it another way by 0.00000006 %.

Gravity wave detection is still in its infancy is it likely/possible we will be able to detect gravity waves from smaller mass objects such as suns/planets.

because “gravity wave” is the official description of ocean waves

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Also in the earth’s atmosphere..

“gravity waves are a mechanism that produce the transfer of momentum from the troposphere to the stratosphere and mesosphere. Gravity waves are generated in the troposphere by frontal systems or by airflow over mountains. At first, waves propagate through the atmosphere without appreciable change in mean velocity. But as the waves reach more rarefied (thin) air at higher altitudes, their amplitude increases, and nonlinear effects cause the waves to break, transferring their momentum to the mean flow. This transfer of momentum is responsible for the forcing of the many large-scale dynamical features of the atmosphere. For example, this momentum transfer is partly responsible for the driving of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, and in the mesosphere, it is thought to be the major driving force of the Semi-Annual Oscillation.”

WP