Gravitational waves occur when the fabric of space and time are distorted by the movement of large masses. Their existence was predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein. In this announcement, black holes with the masses of 31 and 25 solar masses merged into a larger black hole with a mass 53 times that of our sun.
For that brief instant, the gravitational energy emitted by that collision outshined all of the light emitted by all the galaxies throughout the known universe. After traveling for about 1.8 billion light years, the death scream of these two ancient stars passed through the Earth.
On August 14, three detectors recorded the passage of these gravitational waves. Two detectors in the United States -- one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana -- are called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. The other detector, located near Pisa, Italy, is called Virgo.
All three detectors are L-shaped, with each leg being about two miles long. Using lasers and mirrors, these phenomenal pieces of scientific equipment are able to measure tiny changes in the length of the legs of the detectors and identify the passage of gravitational waves.
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