Gravitational Waves

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time created by the interaction of massive objects in space, such as black holes and neutron stars. Their existence was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his 1916 paper describing his theory of general relativity. In 2015, scientists made the first detection of gravitational waves, observing ripples from the collision of two black holes. The discovery won astrophysicists Kip Thorne, Barry Baris and Rainer Weiss the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics. Subsequent observations have also detected gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars. Learn more about gravitational waves here.

Related Topics: Black Holes, Dark Matter, The Theory of Relativity in Space

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