Upcoming space mission could herald new type of astronomy

Imperial scientists are working on a space mission that will listen to violent cosmic events that send out ripples in very fabric of the universe. Probably one of the first real bits of physics we learn at school is how the force of gravity keeps us all from floating off into space — a lesson helped to stick by a certain apocryphal tale about a scientist and a falling apple. But gravity is actually rather more complex and profound than this — certainly more complex than Isaac Newton could have imagined, and indeed there are still some mysteries yet to be resolved to this day about gravity. In 1916 Einstein came up with his famous general theory of relativity, which completely redefined gravity. No longer was it thought of as simply a mutually attractive force between objects - but rather a deformation in the underlying fabric of the universe, known as space-time. Objects with mass distort space-time, essentially stretching it in all directions, and in doing so 'tugging' at other nearby objects, affecting their motion. One feature of Einstein's theory was that when massive bodies move asymmetrically, they will create gravitational waves that ripple out through the fabric of spacetime at the speed of light.