Top Space Story of 2016 - ‘The Waves Have It’

Hey Space Placers! Happy New Year’s Eve everyone. Last year at this time I was in the Indian Ocean enjoying the stars way down under and couldn’t get out a ‘Top Space Pick for 2015’. The July flyby of Pluto http://wtop.com/the-space-place-tech/2015/07/pluto-come-finally/ would have been my pick. For 2016’s pick we leave the solar system and enter the realm of the Cosmos. February’s announcement regarding the discovery of gravitational waves http://wtop.com/science/2016/02/breakthrough-scientists-detect-einstein-predicted-ripples/slide/1/ is my pick for 2016’s “Top Space Story”. Illustration of gravitational waves produced by two orbiting black holes. (Image: Henze/NASA) Ever since humans looked up at the night sky 2.5 million years ago and the invention of the astronomical telescope by Galileo in 1609, almost all information we have gleaned about the Universe has come to us in the form of electromagnetic radiation. L...