Who discovered gravity waves? Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity. When did we discover gravity waves? In 2015, scientists detected gravitational waves for the very first time. They used a very...
What are the four categories of gravitational waves? LIGO scientists have defined four categories of gravitational waves based on what generates them: Continuous, Compact Binary Inspiral, Stochastic, and Burst. What caused the first gravitational wave? In 2015, scientists detected gravitational waves...
How is gravity related to Big Bang theory? About a billion years after the Big Bang, gravity caused these atoms to gather in huge clouds of gas, forming collections of stars known as galaxies. Gravity is the force that pulls any...
Is LIGO a vacuum? Ultimately, LIGO is the largest sustained ultra-high vacuum in the world (8x the vacuum of space) keeping 300,000 cubic feet (about 8,500 cubic meters) at one-trillionth the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere. Is LIGO still operating? LIGO resumes...
How does a LIGO interferometer work? Gravitational waves cause space itself to stretch in one direction and simultaneously compress in a perpendicular direction. In LIGO, this causes one arm of the interferometer to get longer while the other gets shorter, then...
What can LIGO detect? Though its mission is to detect gravitational waves from some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe, the data LIGO collects may have far-reaching effects on many areas of physics including gravitation, relativity, astrophysics,...
What frequencies are LIGO most sensitive to? LIGO is sensitive to gravitational waves only in the frequency range from about 5 Hz to about 20,000 Hz. Fortunately, this range includes the gravitational wave frequencies expected from type II supernovas and from...
What is LIGO technology? The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. What is LIGO and how does it work? It...
What is LIGO and how does it work? It is the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory and a marvel of precision engineering. Comprising two enormous laser interferometers located 3000 kilometers apart, LIGO exploits the physical properties of light and of space...
Where is LIGO located? The two primary research centers are located at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The detector sites in Hanford and Livingston are home to...