On February, 2065438+2006 1 1, the National Science Foundation of the United States and the European Gravitational Observatory held a press conference, officially announcing that for the first time in history, scientists directly observed the ripples in time and space caused by violent events from the distant universe-gravitational waves. This exploration confirmed an important prediction of Albert Einstein's general relativity published in 19 15, and opened an unprecedented new window to explore the universe. Gravitational waves carry the information of the celestial source that produces them through extremely strong astrophysical processes, and at the same time, gravitational waves also carry information that reveals the nature of gravity, which cannot be obtained by other types of signals. Physicists are convinced that they have detected gravitational waves from the last moment of the merger of two black holes. These two black holes merge and eventually form a fast rotating black hole with greater mass. This phenomenon has long been predicted in theory, but it has never been observed before. This gravitational wave signal was generated at 9: 5 1 UTC (Beijing time 17: 5 1) on September 4th, 20 15, respectively. A pair of detectors of the Washington State Laser Interference Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected at the same time. The observatory was funded by the National Science Foundation of the United States and was jointly conceived, built and operated by California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This discovery was made by LIGO Scientific Cooperation Organization (including GEO Cooperation Organization and Australian Interference Gravitational Astronomy Association) and Virgo Gravitational Wave Detector (VIRGO). The data comes from two LIGO detectors. This discovery was accepted and published by Physical Review Letters.