Learn about the discovery of gravitational waves in this NOVA Next article. On February 11, 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team announced that it had detected gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes. This discovery confirmed Einstein’s idea that gravity travels across space-time in the form of gravitational waves. In the past, the universe had only been explored using electromagnetic waves, like visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, X-rays, and gamma rays. The LIGO detection marks the beginning of a new way to look at the universe. This resource is part of the NOVA Next Collection.