The hunt for gravitational waves could be nearing success

 A simulation of gravitational waves produced by two orbiting black holes. Photograph: Ligo Collaboration

Here’s a date for your diary: 1 January 2017. It’s the day that physicists are predicting for a great scientific breakthrough: the first direct detection of gravitational waves.

Even if you have not yet heard about gravitational waves, you are going to in the coming years. When they are detected, it will revolutionise our investigation of the universe.

It will be the equivalent of astronomers discovering a new sense. With telescopes, they can already see the universe. By detecting gravitational waves, they will be able to ‘listen’ to it as well. We would be able to ‘hear’ stars colliding with one another, the destruction of matter falling into black holes and the catastrophic detonation of distant massive stars.

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