At 12:41 universal time on August 17, 2017, physicists at USA and Italy recorded an unprecedented view of a cosmic phenomenon - gravitational waves lasting for 100 seconds at frequencies rising to thousands of cycles per second (c/s), covering every wavelength of light from gamma ray to radio waves along with a 'kilonova', a glow which faded from light blue to dim red in a matter of days. Three massive gravitational wave detectors - twin 8-km-long detectors at the Laser Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Hanford, Washington and in Livingston, Louisiana and the 6-km-long Virgo detector near Pisa, Italy - recorded this observation. This was the fifth event of this type, the four previous ones (beginning with the first one reported by LIGO in early 2016) lasting for, at the most, a few seconds and the gravitational waves rippling at frequencies of tens of c/s. This gift from nature was described as a "life-changing event" by a radio astronomer at Texas Tech University at Lubbock, Texas.
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