The Discovery of Gravitational Waves

New results from the gravitational wave observatory hint that black holes move in mysterious ways

The second confirmation of ripples in spacetime is announced by astronomers at LIGO

Caltech’s Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever and MIT’s Rainer Weiss were the founders of the LIGO experiment that detected gravitational waves. They were just awarded the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics and two of them spoke with Scientific American's Clara Moskowitz about LIGO and the public's reaction.

Fully opening this new window on the universe will take decades—even centuries

Scientific American's Josh Fischman talks with renowned astrophysicist and general relativity expert Kip Thorne about the discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO Project, co-founded by Thorne.
 

The LIGO experiment has confirmed Albert Einstein’s prediction of ripples in spacetime and promises to open a new era of astrophysics

The universe is a noisy place, but we didn’t always have the right ears to hear the sounds—until now.

Various experiments seek different versions of this highly sought-after phenomenon

The discovery of ripples in spacetime will vindicate Einstein—but it can also do so much more

It could mark the birth of a new kind of astronomy

Infographic from Scientific American breaks down the technology behind our ongoing search for ripples in spacetime

The LIGO experiment hunts for gravitational waves that are different from those sought by BICEP2. Although both types are elusive, they differ in age and strength—and come from very different places

Physicists say they've heard that the LIGO observatory may have spotted the signature of merging black holes

As scientists prepare to catch their first gravitational waves, attention is turning to devices that will let astronomers peek into the invisible interiors of black holes and observe the forbidden, early history of time