Albert Einstein hypothesized a century ago that gravitational waves exist, and rumors have been swirling for months that scientists have detected them. We could be just hours away from confirmation that they have. Scientists and journalists will gather at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning for a "status report" from researchers involved in a long quest to detect the waves, which have been likened to ripples in space-time that flow outward at the speed of light when black holes or other massive celestial objects collide. Confirmation that scientists have detected these waves would be a "huge milestone," said Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and professor at Arizona State University "It opens a new window on the universe," he said in an email to The Huffington Post. "Gravitational wave astronomy could be the astronomy of the 21st Century.