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  • The Atlantic

    'A New Rosetta Stone for Astronomy'

    For the first time, astronomers have detected visible light and gravitational waves from the same source, ushering in a new era in our attempt to understand the cosmos.
    by Marina Koren Oct 16, 2017 4 minutes
    Source: University of Warwick / Mark Garlick

    In September of 2015, astronomers detected, for the first time, gravitational waves, cosmic ripples that distort the very fabric of space and time. They came from a violent merger of two black holes somewhere in the universe, more than a billion light-years away from Earth. Astronomers observed the phenomenon again in December, and then again in November 2016, and then again in August of this year. The discoveries confirmed a century-old prediction by Albert Einstein, earned a Nobel prize, and ushered in a new field of astronomy.

    But while astronomers could observe the effects of the waves in the sensitive instruments built to detect them, they couldn’t see the

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