Gravitational waves, a phenomenon foreseen by Einstein, have been discovered, according to a joint US and Italian announcement Thursday. The waves, caused by two black holes, were found by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), and the data also analysed by the part-Italian, part-French VIRGO project at Cascina near Pisa. VIRGO is run by the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), which was founded and funded by Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the French National Research Council (CNRS).
The first signal of gravitational waves was created by the collision of two black holes a billion years ago. The unprecedented result is doubly surprising, scientists said, because as well as confirming Einstein's theory of gravitational waves, it also provides the first direct proof of the existence of black holes. The discovery of gravitational waves "is a result that sets the seal on the theory of general relativity formulated exactly 100 years ago: it's a birthday present for Einstein", said the president of Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Ferrando Ferroni.
Source: http://www.ansa.it/
