Exploring the Universe with Gravitational Waves

The detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 has constituted a major scientific discovery, as it has permitted a new kind of observation of the cosmos, quite different from electromagnetic and particle observations. In this lecture Alessandra Buonanno will discuss how those novel astronomical messengers are already unveiling distinctive and puzzling properties of the most extraordinary astrophysical objects in the universe: black holes and neutron stars. In the next decades, those sounds of silent will provide us with the unique and wondrous opportunity of listening (or peering back) to the very earliest moments of the universe, shedding light on its origin.