Revolutionary discovery: Scientists find gravitational waves Einstein predicted

For the first time ever, scientists have directly detected gravitational waves, bizarre ripples in space-time foreseen by Einstein a century ago. The discovery was the final, acid test of Einstein’s celebrated general theory of relativity, and once again Einstein’s genius held up to scrutiny.

“Einstein comes out with beaming success,” Caltech’s Kip Thorne, one of the founders of the observatory that caught the gravitational waves, told reporters Thursday.

The find not only validates one of the most fundamental theories in physics but also promises to revolutionize astronomy. Because gravitational waves carry information about their source, the ability to detect these weird undulations will allow researchers to study distant and elusive features of the universe.

Study of the universe via gravitational waves “will be the astronomy of the 21st century,” predicts Arizona State University’s Lawrence Krauss, who is not part of the discovery team.  “This is a whole new window on the universe.”

The waves in question arose during the close approach of two black holes some 1.3 billion years ago, when multicellular life began to spread on Earth. Traveling at the speed of light, the waves reached our planet in September -- precisely when a observatory built to detect them was emerging from a long hiatus.