KAKU ON NEWEST GRAVITY WAVES

Early last year, scientists made a breakthrough discovery of gravitational waves in the wild, signaling the dawn of a new subfield of astronomy. This week, separate observatories in Washington, Louisiana, and Italy independently detected and collectively confirmed more gravitational waves in the wild — this time from the collision of two black holes about 2 billion light-years from Earth. Gravity waves pick up cosmic events that are invisible or nearly impossible to measure by any other means. By combining observations of a single event using multiple means, it’s now possible to gain a more complete understanding of the source’s properties than ever before. This method is called multi-messenger astronomy. CBS NEWS science and futurist contributor, Dr. Michio Kaku, joins CBSN to break down what this discovery means for the future of astronomy. WATCH NOW!