On Earth, a visible ripple effect occurs when a stone is thrown into the water. In space, a similar phenomenon happens. However, instead of creating waves that can be seen by the human eye or optical telescopes, the shockwaves that are produced from gravitational energy merging are called gravitational waves.
Physicist Albert Einstein first theorized about the existence of gravitational waves in 1916. But it wasn't until nearly a century later, in 2015, when the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made its first detection of gravitational waves in the universe. Since then, the discovery of gravitational waves have allowed scientists to peer inside neutron stars and discover the wobbliest black hole ever detected.
