Prémio Nobel da Física - 2017

Gravitational waves are produced in acceleration of masses with spherical asymmetry. They propagate at the speed of light, stressing and compressing spacetime; distances in space increase and decrease with a steady cadence in two directions at 90 degrees to each other, orthogonal to the direction of motion of the wave. The effect is very small: for a released energy corresponding to about 3 solar masses like in the first event detected by LIGO in 2015, the relative strain at Earth is about 10^-22 – i.e., the distance between the Earth and the Sun changes by about the size of an atom.