Ripples Detected from 1.3 Billion Years Ago: Breakthrough in Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity proposed in 1915

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More that a century ago, Physicist Albert Einstein proposed the Theory of General Relativity that predicted that when two black holes collide, it creates a burst of waves. After numerous attempts, a breakthrough was found after ripples of waves were found in the spacetime.

After many attempts, Einstein's prediction was confirmed after the two detectors at Louisiana and Washington detected a collision approximately that took place 1.3 Billion years ago. The breakthrough came to light on February 11when ripples created by gravitational waves in the spacetime were detected by Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, as quoted by Science Mag. After the breakthrough, the discovery was named as one of the amazing science stories of 2016 along with Google DeepMind which defeated Lee Sedol in a strategy board game.

Gravitational Waves are made up of extremely minutes particles. The existence was proposed by Albert Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Waves Detector or LIGO was set up by almost 1,000 physicists at Washington and Louisana. These Instrument are L-shaped and were placed far away from each other to detect gravitational waves. Each Detector measures detects the gravitational waves with the help of its 2 arms. About 1.3 Billion Years ago, two Black Holes spiraled into one other and eventually collide creating massive energy which travels as Gravitational Waves on the spacetime fabric. It is only on February 11 that these waves reached Earth and the LIGO detected it. The detected waves confirm that black holes are made up of mysterious matters that are not discovered yet.

The Nature.com updated a similar report stating that now the instruments of LIGO are undergoing upgrades. VIRGO detector in Italy will receive a functional upgrade in 2017. Similarly, Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector will receive the upgrade and then a detector will be added in India by early 2020s.

The discovery will help physicists to discover the pace at which Universe is expanding, matters can make up farthest stars and planets. The discovery has revolutionized the field of astronomy and it has created a new field of Gravitational Wave Astronomy.