About 9.3 billion years ago, a supernova exploded in our universe. Since then, its light has been traveling the billions of light years it takes to get to our little planet we call home. But in between this supernova and Earth, there happens to be a massive galaxy, within a cluster of galaxies, which has had an interesting effect on the path of the light coming from this exploded star.
Today, March 17, 2020, scientists announced they had detectedgravitational waves using a telescope at the South Pole—the firstdirect evidence of the cosmic inflationthat created our universe. "The Tantalizing Quest For Gravity Waves," writtenby Arthur Fisher and originally published in the April 1981 issue ofPopular Sciencemagazine, explores the international effort to detect these ripples in space-time.
If you weren't looking at the constellation Leo very early on Saturday morning, you probably missed the brightest explosion NASA scientists have ever observed. It was three times as bright as the next-brightest explosion, and a ridiculous, basically unimaginable 35 billion times brighter than visible light.
