2017 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Barry Barish commenting on NSF support for LIGO

Three scientists who led the development of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) have won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work detecting gravitational waves -- ripples in space and time created by the motion of massive objects in the universe.

The discovery was made using the sensitive instruments of LIGO, in which NSF invested $1.1 billion. The first detection occurred in September 2015, confirming one prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which he published more than 100 years ago, and led to the identification of large black hole binary systems.

NSF News Release: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243280&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click