Scientists finally discover the aftershock of the universe's Big Bang

Scientists have finally discovered that gravitational waves are important to theory of how galaxies, stars, and planets were able to form.

17:30 18 March 2014

Scientists have concluded a ground-breaking experiment that enabled them to detect the enigmatic ripples in deep space that were triggered by the rapid expansion of the Universe some 13.7billion years ago.

Astrophysicists captured the first indirect images of so-called gravitational waves using a telescope at the South Pole with the aim to measure cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, said: "Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today. A lot of work by a lot of people has led up to this point.”

Professor Bangalore Sathyaprakash, a theoretical physicist at Cardiff University, who was part of the research team, added: "This result is key to answering some of the biggest questions in cosmology. It provides insights into processes that took place in the early Universe, and just how violent the birth of the Universe was.”

"It's wonderful to see the realisation of the prediction that our esteemed colleague Leonid Grishchuk made back in 1975.”