LIGO should begin the new millennium by directly detecting gravitational waves for the first time, perhaps recording the final death spiral of two orbiting neutron stars just before they collide and merge into one. Physicists have predicted that such an event will produce a burst of gravitational waves with a characteristic pattern - its own "fingerprint" - that LlGO should be able to detect and measure, initially out to distances of 70 million light years. As happens so often when we enter new domain of measurement, totally unexpected discoveries may surprise us. Improved detectors will probe deeper into the universe and hunt for more exotic events.