3 scientists win the nobel prize

Three US scientists win the 2017 Nobel prize:

Three US scientists win the 2017 Nobel prize for physics today for opening up a new era of astronomy by detecting gravitational waves,ripples in space and time foreseen by Albert Einstein a century ago.

The work of Rainer Weiss,Barry Barish and Kip Thorne crowned half a century of experimental efforts by scientists and engineers.

Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos,helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars.It may also provide insight into the universe's very earliest moments.

The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for today's prize. "We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy,"Nils Martensson,acting chairman of the Nobel committee for physics,said.

Weiss said the award of the 9 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize was really a recognition of 1000 people working on wave detection.

Two US-based instruments working in unison,callecalled the Laser Interferometre Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO), detected the first waves caused by colliding black holes. Those spotted so far have come from very distant black holes -- extraordinarily dense objects whose existence was also predicted by Einstein that smashed together to form a single,larger black hole.