Ten years ago, on September 14, 2015, at 9:50 am UTC, our planet was compressed and then stretched by a tiny fraction of a nanometer for a handful of milliseconds. Earth has experienced this since its birth, 4.5 billion years ago; gravitational waves have existed since the beginning of the universe. This one, though, was special. For the first time, the hominins that now occupy every landmass on its surface saw it happen. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The discovery of gravitational waves started long before that historic September day, but it is in that moment that the astronomical world changed forever. GW150914 , as the event was called, was caused by two black holes colliding. One was 36 times the mass of our Sun

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