What did the LIGO experiment recently discover?

Gravitational-Wave Discovery Reveals Spectacular Crash of Neutron Stars, the 2nd Known. HONOLULU — For the second time ever, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has spotted two ultradense stellar remnants known as neutron stars violently crashing together.

How strong is the LIGO laser?

While laser diodes are the kind of devices that one finds in everyday laser pointers, at 4 watts, LIGO’s is 800 times more powerful than most off-the-shelf laser pointers.

What happened to LIGO and Virgo?

5 Nov 2019 — On November 1st at 15:00 UTC, the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors resumed their search for gravitational waves after taking a planned month-long break to perform maintenance and upgrades. All three sites halted operations for the entire month of October.

Who is the spokesperson for LIGO?

31 Mar 2019 — Patrick Brady, Professor of Physics and current Director of the Leonard E Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, has been elected spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He succeeds outgoing spokesperson David Shoemaker.

How does LIGO make the measurements it does?

So how can LIGO possibly make the measurements it does? Basic Michelson interferometer with Fabry Perot cavities. Additional mirrors are inserted near the beam splitter to facilitate multiple reflections of the laser, containing it within the interferometer and increasing the distance traveled by the beams.

What is LIGO’s “commissioning break”?

This kind of “commissioning break” sometimes occurs during LIGO’s long observing runs. The current run, O3, began on April 1 2019, when Virgo, the European-based gravitational-wave detector, located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Italy, also started observing.