By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | February 12, 2016 12:11pm ET
A computer simulation showing gravitational waves during a black-hole collision. The discovery has major implications for science.
Credit: MPI for Gravitational Physics/W.Benger-ZibPeople around the world cheered yesterday morning (Feb. 11) when scientists announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time whose existence was first proposed by Albert Einstein, in 1916.
The waves came from two black holes circling each other, closer and closer, until they finally collided. The recently upgraded Large Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) captured the signal on Sept. 14, 2015. Not every scientific discovery gets this kind of reception, so what exactly is all the hype about, and what's next for LIGO now that it has spotted these elusive waves?
First of all, detecting two colliding black holes is thrilling by itself — no one knew for sure if black holes actually merged together to create even more-massive black holes, but now there's physical proof. And there's the joy of finally having direct evidence for a phenomenon that was first predicted 100 years ago, using an instrument that was proposed 40 years ago.
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