"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it," LIGO executive director David Reitze said during a press conference at Washington DC.
The researchers were able to observe the ripples of space-time, also known as gravitational waves, caused by a collision of two black holes which occurred almost 1.3 billion years ago. The phenomenon was actually detected on September 14, 2015, and since then the LIGO scientists have been working tirelessly to verify the accuracy of their observations.
The apparent discovery confirms a prediction made by Albert Einstein a century ago, when the great physicist postulated that a collision of extremely massive objects should produce observable ripples in the fabric of space-time.
Furthermore, the discovery made by LIGO has also become the first actual confirmation of the existence of black holes.
The discovery will likely provide scientists with new ways to discover more about the celestial bodies by studying the gravitational waves emitted by them.
