7 mind-blowing facts about gravitational waves - the 100-year-old prediction just confirmed by scientists

On Thursday, a team of scientists announced that they had detected a phenomenon called gravitational waves for the first time.

Rumors are circulating that the discovery is worthy of the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics because it gives humans a brand new way to study our universe.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the universe that contract and expand the spacetime around them. Scientists detected them by measuring this distortion as one of these waves passed through Earth using the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

But doing so was extremely difficult, and what scientists discovered upon detecting these waves is nothing short of extraordinary. Check out some mind-boggling facts about these waves and this latest discovery: