merger ⚫️ ⚫️

researchers working on the LIGO experiment in America are due to make a historic announcement at 15:30 GMT today that we expect will be confirmation they've detected gravitational waves

operating since 2002 but recently upgraded, the facility consists of two separate L-Shaped laser observatories which measure the ultra-tiny distortions caused by passing gravitational waves. we should be able to detect these 'ripples in space time' when they emanate from massive objects like orbiting neutron stars and black holes, but they've never been seen before now. if LIGO has detected them, it would mark the first direct observation of a phenomenon first posited by Einstein exactly 100 years ago, opening up a new chapter in physics and a whole new way of observing the universe

you can watch the announcement live below, and if you wanna learn more Ars Technica has a good piece, In Our Time did a broadcast on gravitational waves awhile back and there's even an animated comic for short attention spans like ours