A cake broke the biggest astrophysics story in decades
Scientists announced a major breakthrough in astrophysics on Thursday, with the news that gravitational waves have been detected for the first time. This news confirmed Albert Einstein's prediction from 100 years ago, and instantly put the more than 1,000 scientists who took part in the discovery in contention for a Nobel Prize in Physics this year.
The news embargo, which lifted at 10:30 a.m. ET, was broken. Except not by a human, nor an alien, for that matter (this is a space story).
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Instead, it was first confirmed by a sheet cake that had been placed in the back of the press conference room at the National Press Club.
"Here's to the first direct detection of gravitational waves!" the cake said.
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The sheet cake was tweeted out at 10:19 a.m. by astrophysicist and citizen scientist March Kuchner, as well as Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman.
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The cake turned out to be correct, as scientists soon confirmed the detection of the waves, saying they originated from a collision of two black holes, each with a mass 30 times that of the sun, about 1.3 billion years ago.
This detection for the first time confirmed the existence of black holes.
It also marked the greatest journalism accomplishment by any cake so far this year.
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
