APS News

Elusive Gravitational Waves Seen Directly for the First Time

A paper in the APS journal Physical Review Letters reports a detection by LIGO and Virgo collaborations

February 11, 2016

In the culmination of a decades-long quest, physicists have finally detected the minuscule ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. Such waves are generated by violent events, like exploding stars, or merging pairs of black holes. Now, in a paper published in Physical Review Letters on February 11, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations announce the detection of just such a black hole merger. The detection heralds a new era of astronomy — using gravitational waves to “listen in” on the universe.

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