Haas, NCSA)When two black holes merged 1.8 billion light-years away, their violent union sent shock waves through space and time. On Aug. 14, three precisely tuned machines sensed the cosmic fallout, a ripple known as a gravitational wave. Such precision becomes even more important as gravitational wave detectors begin to detect signals from events involving objects other than black holes. But Gonzalez explained that gravitational wave events with optical counterparts can take longer to confirm because of the consistency tests involved. Read more:Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole mergerScientists detect gravitational waves from black holes colliding 3 billion light-years from EarthA brief history of gravity, gravitational waves and LIGOA year later, scientists keep listening to gravitational waves, the soundtrack of the cosmos

Source: Washington Post September 27, 2017 16:37 UTC