Gravitational Wave Observatory Finds More Colliding Black Holes

Gravitational waves have struck again. Scientists who in February announced their landmark discovery of these ripples in spacetime revealed on Wednesday that they had detected more—again caused by a pair of crashing black holes. The gargantuan gravitational forces involved when two such incredibly dense objects ram into each other are so catastrophic that they wrench spacetime out of shape, curving it in powerful waves that travel clear across the cosmos. This second find shows that the initial discovery was not a rare windfall, but rather a preview of many more to come, ushering in an era where astronomers can use gravitational waves, rather than light, to “see” black holes and other invisible components of the hidden universe.