Black hole collisions will revolutionise our perception of the universe
Discovery of the second such event could confirm 100-year-old theory of 'ripple effect' in space from extreme events
Scientists announced that on December 26, 2015 the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected ripples in the fabric of the universe called gravitational waves.
These gravitational waves were generated by two black holes — eight and 14 times the mass of the sun — merging together 1.4 billion light years away from Earth.
This produced a spinning black hole 21 times the mass of the sun. It also released enough energy to rival the mass of the Sun in the form of gravitational waves.
This discovery came just three months after LIGO first detected gravitational waves on September 4, 2015 — one of the most monumental discoveries ever made in physics.
The discovery of gravitational waves confirmed Einstein’s 100-year-old prediction that extremely violent events in space will produce ripples in the fabric of spacetime similar to what would happen if you tossed a pebble into a pond.
Now that scientists have detected two of these events, they’re well on their way to probing some of the darkest, most energetic processes in the universe.