Einstein’s prediction verified; Gravity waves from black holes

Tremors in the cosmic fabric of space and time have finally been detected, opening a new avenue for exploring the universe.

The historic discovery of those tremors, known as gravitational waves, comes almost exactly a century after Albert Einstein first posited their existence. Researchers with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or Advanced LIGO, announced the seminal detection February 11 at a news conference and in a paper in Physical Review Letters. The gravitational swell originated more than 750 million light-years away, where the high-speed dance of two converging black holes shook the very foundation upon which planets, stars and galaxies reside.

“It's the first time the universe has spoken to us through gravitational waves,” LIGO laboratory executive director David Reitze said at the news conference.

The discovery immediately becomes a likely candidate for a Nobel Prize, and not just because it ties a neat bow around decades of evidence supporting a major prediction of Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity. “Gravitational waves allow us to look at the universe not just with light but with gravity,” says Shane Larson, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Gravitational waves can expose the gory details of black holes and other extreme phenomena that can’t be obtained with traditional telescopes. With this discovery, the era of gravitational wave astronomy has begun.