Welcome to our coverage of today’s gravitational wave announcement, coming from Washington DC at 10.30am ET / 3.30pm GMT. In calling the press conference, the National Science Foundation played it coy. Officially they have only said that the briefing will “update the scientific community on efforts to detect” gravitational waves.

Unofficially, the rumours are rife that the announcement will be an actual detection. If so, then our view of the universe changes forever, and we have a whole new way to study the celestial objects.

The ability to detect gravitational waves will not just be bring us new views of objects that we can already see, but will allow us to detect and study objects and events that are currently completely hidden from view.