And a good discussion on this from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
One of the biggest things from this, apart from the gravitational waves themselves, is that this is the first direct look at black holes, since all our prior detection has used electromagnetic waves and radiation, there has never been a direct observation of black holes.
Furthermore it is the first binary black hole system discovered, and there was a gamma ray burst recorded 0.4 seconds later by the Fermi GRB observatory, which was unusual.
Grizlason February 15 2016 22:02:11
Nice discussion. I can't wait for LISA. LIGO measures a distance of 4 kilometers. LISA will measure a distance of 5 million kilometers. That oughta make some difference in what is detected. Maybe NASA can get the sattelites launched on the cheap with falcon heavy in 2017