LIGO discovery named Science’s 2016 Breakthrough of the Year

Science has announced its 2016 Breakthrough of the Year to be the discovery of tiny ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves. It is a finding that confirmed a century-old prediction by Albert Einstein, described as a "shook the scientific world," according to staff writer Adrian Cho.

Part of the 1,000-member Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration responsible for the discovery are, LSU faculty and graduate students are. Professor Gabriela Gonzalez of LSU department of Physics and Astronomy is the spokesperson for the LIGO international collaboration.

"When the reporters and editors sat down to discuss the big news in science, we did not take long to pick a Breakthrough of the Year," News Editor Tim Appenzeller explained.

There were lots of fantastic discoveries in 2016 including evidence of a new ninth planet and fertile eggs created from stem cells just to name a few, but the discovery of gravitational waves towered over everything. Tim added.

Einstein theorized that whirling concentrations of mass such as two stars orbiting each other would be able to radiate ripples in spacetime, but he thought the gravitational waves would be too minuscule to detect in the days before black holes and neutron stars were discovered.

In February, scientists working with LIGO announced evidence of a burst of waves that created 1.3 billion light years away, when two black holes spiraled into each other.

But physicists are more excited about what may come next, as the waves reveal the collision of two black holes. They believe that findings could provide a new way to observe the universe and also serve as a major tool for astronomers.

The instruments at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories, in Livingston, La., and Hanford, Wash., are the only interferometers in the world that have been able to detect gravitational waves, according to Kalb.

The setup of LIGO's two massive detectors includes two arms with mirrors at either end, housed in a large L-shaped vacuum chamber. By bouncing laser light between the mirrors, Scientist would be able to compare the arms' length with razor-sharp precision to within 1/10,000 the width of a proton. They observed the arms were stretched by different amounts, thus indicating a passing gravitational wave.

LIGO has detected a second black-hole merger and a third, weaker, signal. The interferometers resumed taking data last month, and if they are able reach their design sensitivity, they may eventually detect a black-hole merger once a day on average, Cho stated.

LIGO's discovery marks the culmination of a legendary, four-decade-long quest, as researchers have been working on developing, building and improving LIGO since the 70s, without any guarantee that they would ever detect anything.

According to Aaas, other instruments will join LIGO, including detectors from Italy, Japan and India. Three or more detectors working together should be able to detect a gravitational wave source in the sky by triangulation.

It could also help to simultaneously hone in on the same event and possibly even enable conventional telescopes to detect light and other signals from it. The approach could enable astrophysicists to do amazing and unprecedented things, such as probe the properties of neutron-star matter.

Also included in The 2016 Science Breakthrough section is the result of a readers' choice poll, where the public voted on its favorite science breakthrough and declared the human embryos growing in lab culture their winner.

The LIGO Observatories are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and built and operated by Caltech and MIT. The LIGO Livingston observatory is situated on LSU property. LSU students and research staffs are the major contributors to the 15-nation international LIGO Science Collaboration.