This first direct observation was reported around the world as a remarkable accomplishment for many reasons. Efforts to directly prove the existence of such waves had been ongoing for over fifty years, and the waves are so minuscule that Albert Einstein himself doubted that they could ever be detected. The waves given off by the cataclysmic merger of GW150914 reached Earth as a ripple in spacetime that changed the length of a 1,120 km LIGO effective span by a thousandth of the width of a proton, proportionally equivalent to changing the distance to the nearest star outside the Solar System by one hair's width. The energy released by the binary as it spiralled together and merged was immense, with the energy of 3.0 +0.5 −0.5 c solar masses (5.3 +0.9 −0.8 × 10 joules or 5300 +900 −800 foes) in total radiated as gravitational waves, reaching a peak emission rate in its final few milliseconds of about 3.6 +0.5 −0.4 × 10 watts – a level greater than the combined power of all light radiated by all the stars in the observable universe.