Gravitational waves celebrated as scientific breakthrough of 2016

The discovery of gravitational waves – ripples in spacetime – has been named breakthrough of the year by the top American journal Science.

Scientists from Glasgow University along with a team at the Laser Interferometer Gravitationalwave Observatory (Ligo) in the US detected a burst of the ripples emitted by two colliding black holes 1.3 billion light years away. The announcement, made in February, confirmed a century-old prediction by Albert Einstein 0 The discovery proved Albert Einstein’s prediction correct and was front-page news around the world.

Science journal news editor Tim Appenzeller said: “2016 saw lots of fantastic achievements. But the discovery of gravitational waves towered over everything else.”

In theory, gravitational waves squeeze and stretch anything they pass through, including the Earth, but the effect is tiny and would not normally be noticed.

Ligo used two massive L-shaped detectors in different US locations that bounced laser light between mirrors to measure tiny shifts in the relative length of a pair of vacuum tubes, each 2.5 miles long.

The detectors had to be precise enough to spot a change of less than one ten-thousandth the width of a proton. Scientists said that being able to spot gravitational waves will open a “new window” on the universe.