We've Found Gravitational Waves. Now What?

Artist's depiction of colliding neutron stars shredding spacetime, producing ripples of gravitational waves. Credit: NASA. David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, took the podium at the National Press Building in Washington, DC, this morning, and said the words we've all been waiting on tenterhooks to hear: "We have discovered gravitational waves." And a packed auditorium in Caltech's Cahill building in Pasadena--where people had gathered to watch the live feed--erupted into wil...