Explained: What are gravitational waves?

The hope is that gravitational waves could open up the door to answering some of the biggest mysteries in science

Scientists working at the LIGO experiment in the US have for the first time detected elusive ripples in the fabric of space and time known as gravitational waves. There is no doubt that the finding is one of the most groundbreaking physics discoveries of the past 100 years. But what are they?

To best understand the phenomenon, let’s go back in time a few hundred years. In 1687 when Isaac Newton published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he thought of the gravitational force as an attractive force between two masses – be it the Earth