On February 11, 2016, Albert Einstein proved to be an even greater genius than we already thought.

About a century ago, Einstein came up with his theory of general relativity, which would change the way we understand the laws of physics in our universe. Part of his theory involved the idea that gravity affects both space and time. After Einstein came along, physicists no longer considered gravity to be just another force like others that we see in our everyday life. To put it simply, gravity bends and distorts both space and time. Within this new idea of general relativity, Einstein was able to postulate the existence of black holes, and determine how these objects would exist in space. Considering the extreme mass and gravitational field of a black hole, he also predicted that, if two of these black holes were to ever interact, the bending of space-time within that interaction would be detectable by people on Earth in the form of "gravity waves." He thought that this effect would come in the form of ripples in space-time itself. He was absolutely right.

Physicists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that gravity waves have officially been detected. The physicists at LIGO used a huge interferometer to detect these gravitational waves. An interferometer reflects a light beam off of a mirror, back toward itself. The way in which the original beam's wave pattern interferes with the reflected wave pattern (called the "interference pattern") is projected onto a screen. These beams are held in extremely stable conditions so that the only possible fluctuation in the interference pattern would be caused by gravity waves. After years of work to create such a precise apparatus, the work paid off. Two black holes collided after orbiting each other for a period of time, during which they both accelerated to extreme velocities. This collision is estimated to have occurred about 1.3 billion years ago. Give that a moment of thought: two unfathomably massive objects became one, causing an effect in our universe so immense that we could feel it 1.3 billion years later. In my opinion, that alone should intrigue any person enough to get them excited about this discovery. But its implications go far beyond a sentiment for the vastness of our universe.

Black holes are dark objects, leaving their detection solely up to the observation of gravitational forces. Therefore, until this discovery, there was no absolute physical proof of the existence of black holes in the form that Einstein predicted. We can now be without much doubt that supermassive stars form black holes at the end of their lives. And moving forward from this discovery, interferometry instruments can be modeled after the LIGO apparatus to take astronomical observations of high gravitational interactions in our universe. This new field of astronomy can lead to a more solidified understanding of general relativity, as well as the ability to study gravity more directly. There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of interferometry and what these gravity waves can tell us, however, that does not diminish the importance of this discovery.

Our universe is ever-expanding and is constantly giving us new things to learn about it. Breakthroughs like the LIGO gravity wave detection motivate us as humans to push forward in our studies of astronomy. Space is the universal frontier, where we are limited only by what we can observe. My hope is that, in the near future, people realize the potential we have as humans to learn about things outside our physical reach, so that we may better understand our universe. There is so much out there that we have yet to understand. We, as human beings, should strive together to learn as much as we can about the place we live - where we fly around a star - where the sun floats amongst a sea of stellar neighbors - where our galaxy, along with countless others, forever speed through the vast expanse that is our universe.