The prospect of time travel has compelled people since the concept was first discussed, but with a new breakthrough, the technology could be closer to reality than ever before.

After all, there is just something about the prospect of being able to go back or forward in time that really touches something very profound in each person. This is why movies such as the "Back to the Future" franchise became such massive hits. There was just something in the concept that really resonated with viewers.

However, real-world possibilities of time travel have been quite elusive. Scientists in the past have expressly stated that it is next to impossible to achieve such a feat.

Last January, however, time travel fans received some very good news, after Lawrence Kraus, a physicist from Arizona State University, teased his followers on Twitter about the discovery of gravitational waves, reported The International Business Times.

Kraus' study was conducted by scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in (LIGO) September, 2015. It is set to be published in Nature in the Feb. 11, 2016 issue, together with official press releases that are connected to the discovery.

In an email to McMaster University's physics department, theoretical physicist Clifford Burgess confirmed Kraus' findings to a point. The theoretical physicist also stated that he has personally seen the evidence from Kraus' study.

"Spies who have seen the paper say they have seen gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger," he said, adding that the LIGO interferometers were able to detect the alleged gravitational waves through a time delay between two black holes, according to Tech Times.

LIGO interferometers are primarily utilized by scientists to search for the infinitesimal stretching of space that is said to occur the moment a gravitational wave passed through.

Gravitational waves are a very pertinent aspect in the possibilities of time travel. Albert Einstein himself predicted the existence of the waves back in 1916, with the assumption that such waves were extremely important in the understanding of how the universe works.

The alleged findings of Kraus's study, provided that they are proven accurate, of course, actually coincide with the recent launch of the world's pioneer gravitational wave detector, LISA Pathfinder. Of course, with an instrument already up in space, it just becomes a matter of pointing LISA Pathfinder in the correct direction.

Of course, proving the existence of gravitational waves is but the first step in the real-world possibilities of time travel. However, it is a significant step forward nonetheless. After all, once proven, then the possibility of discovering time travel itself becomes that much stronger.

If the study does prove accurate, conspiracy theorists and science fiction fans would definitely have a field day.