Inside the LIGO facility in Hanford, Washington
LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, consists of two widely-separated interferometers within the United States — one in Hanford, Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana — operated in unison to detect gravitational waves. Here the Hanford facility is seen. LIGO was designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astrophysics through the direct detection of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. The multi-kilometer-scale gravitational wave detectors use laser interferometry to measure the minute ripples in space-time caused by passing gravitational waves from cataclysmic cosmic events such as colliding neutron stars or black holes, or by supernovae.
Credit:NOIRLab/LIGO/NSF/AURA/T. Matsopoulos
About the Video
Id: | LIGO-8K_41-CC |
Release date: | April 2, 2024, 3:55 p.m. |
Duration: | 43 s |
Frame rate: | 29.97 |
About the Object
Category: | NSF Infrastructures (other) |