Finding Gravitational Waves: One Man’s Life Goal Realized After Nearly 30 Years

The director explained that gravitational waves were the last piece of Einstein’s theory of general relativity that has yet to be proven.

Professor Stephen Hawking, an expert on Black Holes told the BBC, “Gravitational waves provide a completely new way at looking at the Universe”.

On February 11, 2016, scientists announced that the gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.

Detectors were built under the project as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), taking months in order to verify the gather data the scientists made it through a process of peer-review. “It’s the first time the universe has spoken to us through gravitational waves”, Reitze said.

“Waves carry information. We use all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum – optical, infrared, ultraviolet, energetic particles – to investigate the distant universe”, Zank said.

That faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago. Even though no significant research papers have been produced at the varsity on the matter, the researchers at the university now hope of doing research on this ground-breaking discovery. Astrophysict Szabolcs Márka, has proclaimed that the skies will never be the same after this phenomenal proof that approves the presence of gravitational waves. The latest discovery from darkest space may lead to more complete explanations of everything.

The Theory of General Relativity states that giant objects such as black holes, stars and planets could distort the space-time, just like how gravity works when a ball rolls down towards a person standing on a trampoline.

The new black hole, with three suns worth of mass has now been turned into an energy – gravitational waves.

LIGO detected the signal of gravitational waves from the two black holes in space that were colliding with each other. Whenever the gravitational wave passed through it, the two arms, one of them stretched and the other one compressed. The team made key upgrades to giant detectors which enabled them to capture the 1.3 billion-year-old “thud” from one of the waves – which finally proves the universe can be “heard”.