Gravitational waves detected 100 years after Einstein’s prediction

Ripples in the fabric of spacetime produced by two merging black holes were detected by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO; top inset). The announcement comes 100 years after Albert Einstein’s prediction of the existence of gravitational waves and signals the opening of the gravitational wave Universe. The wide-field imaging capability of DECam at CTIO (bottom inset) was used to search for the optical counterpart of the gravitational wave event.