Credit: RUSSELL KIGHTLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Caption: Animation of the merger of two black holes causing a pulse of gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Gravity is the distortion of spacetime by mass, and changes in this distortion travel in waves at the speed of light. The effect is most pronounced where extremely massive objects are subject to extremely high acceleration. This is seen, for instance, where black holes or neutron stars are in a close orbit such as this. In February 2016, gravitational waves were detected for the first time, 100 years after Einstein's prediction. The waves emanated from the collision of two black holes, of 36 and 29 solar masses, some 1.3 billion light years away. The waves were extremely faint by the time they arrived at Earth, where they were detected by the two LIGO detectors in the USA.

Release details: Model release not required. Property release not required.

Keywords: 2016, animated, animation, astronomical, astronomy, black hole, black holes, colliding, collision, cosmological, cosmology, cosmos, deformation, deforming, detector, detectors, distorting, distortion, einstein, energy, force, general relativity, gravitational lensing, gravitational waves, graviton, gravity, lens, ligo, mass, masses, massive, merger, merging, model, news, orbit, orbiting, radiating, radiation, ring, rings, ripple, ripples, simulation, space, spacetime, time, wave