Gravitational Waves: A New Window on the Universe

Black hole or neutron star collisions in distant galaxies violently shake the fabric of spacetime, producing the incredibly tiny ripples in gravity here on Earth first predicted by Einstein 100 years ago. LIGO and Virgo, through a technological tour-de-force yielding unprecedented precision, expect to observe these ripples in the next 2-3 years. This new gravitational-wave window will open otherwise invisible phenomena to view and spur new technologies to peer even deeper into the Universe.