The CBC radio reported about the LIGO project, The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory. I’m not sure who the CBC (science) reporter is on the local CBC station, but he’s obviously engaged in everything that matters in science (he also has ‘weekly science quizzes, which are always fun to explain). However, back to LIGO (Wikipedia link): the project was built to capture gravitational waves that happen in the cosmos.
Gravitational waves are ‘ripples’ in the space-time continuum caused by objects (mass, specifically) that move, collide and well, fluctuate as a result of any action. These waves are very weak, however, scientifically, the strongest gravitational waves we may detect on Earth are caused by (distant) collisions of stars and galaxies. According to estimates, the chances of direct detection by LIGO are one in six by 2010. That’s a pretty good rate, if you think of it. That means that the Physics books we had back in the days (briefly discussing the never detected gravitational waves and left it at that) may need to be rewritten in about 2 or 3 years. That’s pretty exciting news, and yes, that would be an achievement, because it would be a valid test for the relativity theory.