What's the latest cosmology gossip? According to the Guardian, the field is awash with rumors that next week, American scientists will announce the detection of gravitational waves: incredibly small ripples carrying energy across the void of the universe.

Space.com reports simply that at a press conference scheduled for 12:00 noon EDT on Monday, March 17, "[A] team of scientists will unveil what they bill as a 'major discovery' in the field of astrophysics...at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."

Predicted by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity, gravitational waves are speculated to be “an echo of the big bang [sic] in which the universe came into existence 14bn year ago,” writes the Guardian, which caught an echo of the intense excitement that seems to be swirling among scientists with these and other quotes:

"If they do announce primordial gravitational waves on Monday, I will take a huge amount of convincing," said Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist from University College London. "But if they do have a robust detection … Jesus, wow! I'll be taking next week off."