Upgrades to the hardware and software of the advanced observatory should allow astrophysicists to detect much fainter gravitational waves than before.
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Articles on LIGO
Displaying 1 - 20 of 26 articles
The world’s biggest gravitational wave observatory is now probing the limits of quantum mechanics.
New discovery settles a wager between astrophysicists: black holes can merge repeatedly.
The signal came in on ANZAC Day, ripples in space-time from the merger of two neutron stars an estimated 500-million light years away. But where it happened is still a mystery.
More ripples in space-time have been detected from merging pairs of black holes, one of which was the most massive and distant gravitational-wave source ever observed.
Until the recent observation of merging neutron stars, how the heaviest elements come to be was a mystery. But their fingerprints are all over this cosmic collision.
A LIGO team member describes how the detection of a gravitational wave from a new source – merging neutron stars – vaults astronomy into a new era of ‘multi-messenger’ observations.
The gravitational wave itself is the least exciting part of the announcement from LIGO and Virgo. Observing this new source answers many longstanding questions.
The discovery of tiny ripples in space from the violent collision of dense stars could help solve many mysteries – including where the gold in our jewellery comes from.
Today’s scientific research is characterized by interdisciplinary, international collaboration. Awards like the Nobel Prizes haven’t caught up.
Razor-sharp, unconventional and fun on the dance floor. A colleague paints a colourful portrait of one of this year’s Nobel Laureates in physics.
New results from Italy and the US help us better estimate the position of the merging black holes that produced the gravitational waves.
New research shows that as few as ten further detections of gravitational waves will help scientists know for sure how pairs of black holes form.
Scientists have made a third detection of gravitational waves, again caused by the merger of two black holes. But they think there’s something different about the black holes in this case.
These ripples in the very fabric of the universe were hypothesized by Einstein a century ago. Now scientists have detected them for the third time in a year and a half – ushering in a new era in astrophysics.
The OzGRav Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery will enable Australian researchers to be at the forefront of gravitational wave astronomy.
The observation of gravitational waves from a second black hole merger implies there are many more black holes in the universe than scientists had previously anticipated.
Scientists being wrong is not a bug or a glitch – it’s a feature of science and mistakes can actually lead to new, deeper discoveries.
Scientific advances – including the recent discovery of gravitational waves – force us to deal with numbers so extreme they’re virtually inconceivable.
The hunt to find the source of the gravitational waves detected by LIGO on the sky is only just starting.
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
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Professor of Physics, Penn State
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
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Associate professor, Monash University
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South African Research Chair in Physical Cosmology, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Gravitational Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Glasgow
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Reader in Physics, University of Sheffield
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Postdoctoral research fellow in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics, Monash University
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Associate Professor of Mathematical Physics, University of Cape Town
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Research fellow, The University of Western Australia
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Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, Monash University
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Professor, University of Sydney
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia
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Professor of Mathematics, University of Florida
