Scientists have just made one of the biggest breakthroughs in years

The waves were made by two black holes colliding (Picture: PA)

Ripples in space time have been captured on Earth 100 years after they were predicted by Albert Einstein, say scientists.
The announcement has electrified the world of physics and astronomy. Scientists say the finding opens a new way of observing the cosmos.
For many years, scientists have had indirect evidence of the existence of gravitational waves rippling across the universe.

But now, an all-star international team of astrophysicists using an excruciatingly sensitive, $1.1billion instrument has actually detected one of these waves from the distant crash of two black holes 30 times as massive as the Sun, located 1.3 billion light years from Earth.
One theorist says the feat ranks along Galileo taking up a telescope and looking at the planets.

How did scientists detect the gravity waves?

Like light, gravity travels in waves, but instead of radiation, it is space itself that is rippling. Detecting the gravitational waves required measuring 2.5-mile (4 km) laser beams to a precision 10,000 times smaller than a proton.
The two laser instruments, which work in unison, are known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). They are able to detect remarkably small vibrations from passing gravitational waves.
After detecting the gravitational wave signal, the scientists said they converted it into audio waves and were able to listen to the sounds of the two black holes merging.

‘We’re actually hearing them go thump in the night,’ MIT physicist Matthew Evans said. ‘We’re getting a signal which arrives at Earth, and we can put it on a speaker, and we can hear these black holes go, ‘whoop’. There’s a very visceral connection to this observation.’
The scientists said they first detected the gravitational waves last September 14.
‘We are really witnessing the opening of a new tool for doing astronomy,’ MIT astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala said in an interview.
‘We have turned on a new sense. We have been able to see and now we will be able to hear as well.’
The LIGO work is funded by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the US government.

The clash of black holes took place billions of light years away (Picture: Getty)

Einstein in 1916 proposed the existence of gravitational waves as an outgrowth of his ground-breaking general theory of relativity, which depicted gravity as a distortion of space and time triggered by the presence of matter.
But until now scientists had found only indirect evidence of their existence.
Scientists said gravitational waves open a door for a new way to observe the universe and gain knowledge about enigmatic objects like black holes and neutron stars. By studying gravitational waves they also hope to gain insight into the nature of the very early universe, which has remained mysterious.
Everything we know about the cosmos stems from electromagnetic waves such as radio waves, visible light, infrared light, X-rays and gamma rays. But because such waves encounter interference as they travel across the universe, they can tell only part of the story.
Gravitational waves experience no such barriers, meaning they can offer a wealth of additional information. Black holes, for example, do not emit light, radio waves and the like, but can be studied via gravitational waves.
Metro