Refining Our Understanding of Gravitational Waves
Gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by tremendous events like colliding black holes or supernovae—were finally confirmed by scientists in 2016, after being predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. This monumental discovery, made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), might not have been possible had it not been for Arecibo, as NAIC explains:
Indeed, the first evidence for the existence of gravitational waves came from long-term Arecibo observations of a pulsar in a decaying orbit with another neutron star, where the rate of orbital shrinkage matched the rate expected from the loss of energy carried away by emitted gravitational waves.
