Gravitational waves carry
information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that
cannot otherwise be obtained. It has been concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black
hole. Such a collision of two black holes had been predicted but never
observed.
The gravitational waves were detected
on September 14, 2015 at 5:53 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (9:53 a.m. UTC) by
both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.