Science

Physicists want to 'listen' for these 7 bizarre phenomena in space using gravitational waves

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For the third time in two years, physicists have detected ripples in the fabric of spacetime, called gravitational waves, that Albert Einstein predicted the existence of more than 100 years ago with his theory of general relativity.

"Einstein continues to rock, in the sense that we keep pushing the boundaries of his theory," Vicky Kalogera, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University and LIGO data analyst, told Business Insider. "It passes every test that we throw at it."

The waves came from two black holes colliding together about 3 billion light-years from Earth, and a giant experiment called LIGO detected them.

But that's just one of many discoveries that gravitational waves could bring us as new detectors go online and get upgraded.

BI Graphics_Gravitational Waves update
Skye Gould/Business Insider

Sarah Kramer contributed reporting to this post.

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Skye was the Design Director for Business Insider and Insider. She led the Graphics and Photo teams in producing all graphics, data visualizations, story art, photography, and special projects for the newsroom.
Dave Mosher reported news and features stories about science and technology for Insider, with human and robotic spaceflight as the primary focus of his multimedia storytelling. Mosher joined Insider in April 2015 as a deputy editor to help launch Tech Insider and manage its science desk. He left the company in February 2021. Prior to being an Insider, Mosher directed Popular Science's website, was a Wired contributor, and worked for or with Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, Discover, Space.com, National Geographic News, Discovery Channel, Nature, Science, and other media outlets.