What phenomenon earned Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics?

Gravitational waves earned Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The prize recognized decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in spacetime produced by accelerating massive objects, such as merging black holes.

LIGO made the first direct observation in September 2015. The signal came from two black holes that spiraled together and merged about 1.3 billion light-years from Earth. The event was announced in February 2016 and matched predictions from Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Gravitational-wave astronomy provides information that ordinary telescopes cannot obtain from some violent cosmic events. The waves are extremely weak by the time they reach Earth, so LIGO uses long laser interferometers to detect tiny changes in distance. The 2017 prize was shared among Weiss, Barish and Thorne, while many collaborators contributed to the discovery.